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WHITE. 


White Pawn ( Alice) to play, and win in eleven moves 

I. R. Q. to K. R.’s 4th . 36 


PAGE 

28 



1. Alice meets R. Q. . . 

2. Alice through Q.’s 3d 

(by railway ) ... 39 

to Q. ’ s 4th ( Tweedledum 
and Tweedledee) . . 54 

3. Alice meets W. Q. (with 

shawl) 74 

4. Alice to Q.’s 5th (shop, 

river , shop ) ... 83 

5. Alice to Q. ’ s 6th(Hump- 

ty Dumpty ) ... 93 

6. Alice to Q.’s 7 th (forest) 129 

7. W. Kt. takes R. Kt. . 132 

8. Alice to Q.’s 8th (Coro- 

nation) 152 

9. Alice becomes Queen . 168 

10. Alice Castles ( feast ) . 176 

11. Alice takes R. Q. and 

wins 178 


2. W. Q. to Q. B.’s 4th 

(after shawl) ... 73 


3. W. Q. to Q. B.’s 5th 

(becomes sheep) . . 83 

4. W. Q. to K. B.’s 8th 

(leaves egg on shelf) 91 

5. W. Q. to Q. B.’s 8th 

(flying from R. Kt.) 123 

6. R. Kt. to K.’s 2d (ch.) 130 

7. W. Kt. toK. B.’s 5th . 151 

8. R. Q. to K.’s sq. (exam- 

ination) . . . .155 

9. Queen’s Castle . . .166 

10. W. Q. to Q. R.’s 6th 

(soup) 176 


THROUGH 

THE LOOKING-GLASS 

AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE 


BY 

LEWIS CARROLL 

Author of 

“Alice' 8 Adventures in Wonderland M 


Illustrated by 

BESSIE PEASE GUTMANN 



New York 

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

220 East 23d Street 

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Copyright, 1909, by 

DODGE PUBLISHING CO. 


* • 


liBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

JUN 8 180* 




s 0 TWaa .51 *| , 





INTRODUCTION 


Child of the pure unclouded brow 
And dreaming eyes of wonder ! 
Though time be fleet, and I and thou 
Are half a life asunder, 

Thy loving smile will surely hail 
The love-gift of a fairy-tale. 

I have not seen thy sunny face. 

Nor heard thy silver laughter: 

No thought of me shall find a place 
In thy young life’s hereafter — 
Enough that now thou wilt not fail 
To listen to my fairy-tale. 

A tale begun in other days, 

When summer suns were glowing — 

A simple chime, that served to time 
The rhythm of our rowing — 

Whose echoes live in memory yet, 
’Though envious years would say ‘forget. 

Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread, 
With bitter tidings laden, 

Shall summon to unwelcome bed 
A melancholy maiden ! 

We are but older children, dear, 

Who fret to find our bedtime near. 


INTRODUCTION 



Without, the frost, the blinding snow, 
The storm-wind’s moody madness — 
Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow, 
And childhood’s nest of gladness. 
The magic words shall hold thee fast: 
Thou shalt not heed the raving blast. 

And, though the shadow of a sigh 
May tremble through the story. 

For ‘ happy summer days,’ gone by, 
And vanish’d summer glory— 

It shall not touch, with breath of bale. 
The pleasance of our fairy-tale. 


CHRISTMAS-GREETINGS 

[FROM A FAIRY TO A CHILD] 


Lady dear, if Fairies may 
For a moment lay aside 

Cunning tricks and elfish play, 

’Tis at happy Christmas-tide. 

We have heard the children say — 
Gentle children, whom we love — 

Long ago, on Christmas Day, 

Came a message from above. 

Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, 
They remember it again — 

Echo still the joyful sound 

“ Peace on earth, good-will to men ! ” 

Yet the hearts must childlike be 
Where such heavenly guests abide ; 

Unto children, in their glee. 

All the year is Christmas-tide! 

Thus, forgetting tricks and play 
For a moment, Lady dear. 

We would wish you, if we may. 

Merry Christmas, glad New Year! 


Christmas, 1867. 











THE LOOKING-GLASS 

AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE 

LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE 

O NE thing was certain, that the white 
kitten had had nothing to do with it 
— it was the black kitten’s fault en- 
tirely. For the white kitten had been having 
its face washed by the old cat for the last 
quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, 
considering) : so you see that it couldn't have 
had any hand in the mischief. 

The way Dinah washed her children’s faces 
was this: first she held the poor thing down 
by its ear with one paw, and then with the 
other paw she rubbed its face all over, the 
wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just 
now, as I said, she was hard at work on the 
white kitten, which was lying quite still and 
trying to purr — no doubt feeling that it was 
all meant for its good. 

But the black kitten had been finished with 

[i] 

'J0 






THRPUGH THE 






earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice \/^u 
was sitting curled up in a corner of the great 
arm-chair, half talking to herself and half 
asleep, the kitten had been having a grand 
game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice !^Q 
had been trying to wind up, and had been 
rolling it up and down till it had all come un- 
done again; and there it was, spread over the 
hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the 
kitten running after its own tail in the middle. 

“Oh, you wicked wicked little thing!” cried 
Alice, catching up the kitten, and giving it a 
little kiss to make it understand that it was in 
disgrace. “Really, Dinah ought to have taught 
you better manners! You ought , Dinah, you 
know you ought !” she added, looking reproach- 
fully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross 
a voice as she could manage — and then she 






[ 2 ] 






it l HR 

©OTNG GLASS 

scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the 
kitten and the worsted with her, and began 
winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get 
on very fast, as she was talking all the time, 
sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to her- 
self. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, 
pretending to watch the progress of the wind- 
ing, and now and then putting out one paw ; 
and gently touching the ball, as if it would be 
glad to help if it might. 

“Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?” 
Alice began. “You’d have guessed if you’d 
been up in the window with me — only Dinah 
was making you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was 
watching the boys getting in sticks for the 
bonfire — and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! 
Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, 
they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, 
we’ll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.” Here 
Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted 
round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it 
would look : this led to a scramble, in which the 
ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and 
yards of it got unwound again, 

“ ^ [ 3 ] 








THROUGH THE 


“Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,” 
;; Alice went on, as soon as they were com- 
^ fortably settled again, “when I saw all the mis- 
£ chief you had been doing, I was very nearly 
opening the window, and putting you out into 
the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you 
^ little mischievous darling! What have you 
got to say for yourself? Now don’t interrupt 
j me!” she went on, holding up one finger. “I’m 
going to tell you all your faults. Number one : 
you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing 
your face this morning. Now you can’t deny 
it, Kitty: I heard you! What’s that you say?” 
(pretending that the kitten was speaking). 
“Her paw went into your eye? Well, that’s 
your fault, for keeping your eyes open — if 
you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have hap- 
pened. Now don’t make any more excuses, 
but listen! Number two: you pulled Snow- 
drop away by the tail just as I had put down 
the saucer of milk before her ! What, you were 
thirsty, were you? How do you know she 
wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: 
[ 4 ] 




MUG GLASS 


you unwound every bit of the worsted while I, 
wasn’t looking! 

“That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not 
been punished for any of them yet. You know 
I’m saving up all your punishments for 
Wednesday week — Suppose they had saved up 
all my punishments?” she went on, talking 
more to herself than the kitten. “What would, 
they do at the end of a year? I should be sent 
to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Or 
— let me see — suppose each punishment was 
to be going without a dinner: then, when the 
miserable day came, I should have to go with- 
out fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t 
mind that much! I’d far rather go without 
them than eat them! 

“Do you hear the snow against the window- 
panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! 
Just as if some one was kissing the window all 
over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the 
trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? 
And then it covers them up snug, you know, 
with a white quilt ; and perhaps it says ‘Go to 
[ 5 ] 





THROUGH THE 



^ A 'y 7 ; sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’ *v$\/ 
And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, 03^ 
^ they dress themselves all in green, and dance ■> 


about — whenever the wind blows — oh, that’s 


very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball 
of worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so 
W wish it was true ! I’m sure the woods look 
/TJlfo sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are get- 

m ;i 


; ting brown. 

“Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t 
smile, my dear, I’m asking it seriously. Be- 
cause, when we were playing just now, you 
watched just as if you understood it: and when 
I said ‘Check !’ you purred ! Well, it was a nice 
check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it 
hadn’t been for that nasty Knight, that came 
wriggling down among my pieces. Kitty, 
dear, let’s pretend — ” And here I wish I could 
tell you half the things Alice used to say, be- 
ginning with her favourite phrase “Let’s pre- 
tend.” She had had quite a long argument 
with her sister only the day before — all because 
Alice had begun with “Let’s pretend we’re 

[6] dXfe 





mo GLASS 

kings and queens;” and her sister, who liked 
being very exact, had argued that they 
couldn’t, because there were only two of them, 
and Alice had been reduced at last to say 
“Well, you can be one of them, then, and Til 
be all the rest.” And once she had really 
frightened her old nurse by shouting sud- 
denly in her ear, “Nurse! Do let’s pretend y 
that I’m a hungry hysena, and you’re a 
bone!” 

But this is taking us away from Alice’s 
speech to the kitten. “Let’s pretend that 
you’re the Red Queen, Kitty ! Do you know, 

I think if you sat up and folded your arms, 
you’d look exactly like her. Now do try, 
there’s a dear!” And Alice got the Red Queen 
off the table, and set it up before the kitten as 
a model for it to imitate: however, the thing 
didn’t succeed, principally, Alice said, because 
the kitten wouldn’t fold its arms properly. So, 
to punish it, she held it up to the Looking- 
glass, that it might see how sulky it was, “ — 
and if you’re not good directly,” she added, 


THROUGH THE 

“I’ll put you through into Looking-glass 
House. How would you like that? 

“Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not 
talk so much, I’ll tell you all my ideas about 
Looking-glass House. First, there’s the room 
you can see through the glass — that’s just the 
same as our drawing-room, only the things go 
the other way. I can see all of it when I get 
upon a chair — all but the bit just behind the 
fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see that 
bit ! I want so much to know whether they’ve 
a fire in the winter: you never can tell, you 
know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke 
comes up in that room too — but that may be 
only pretence, just to make it look as if they 
had a fire. Well then, the books are something 
like our books, only the words go the wrong 
way: I know that , because I’ve held up one of 
our books to the glass, and then they hold up 
one in the other room. 

“How would you like to live in Looking- 
glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they’d give 
you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass 





milk isn’t good to drink — but oh, Kitty! now 
we come to the passage. You can just see a 
little peep of the passage in Looking-glass 
House, if you leave the door of our drawing- 
room wide open : and it’s very like our passage 
as far as you can see, only you know it may be 
quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty, how nice 
it would be if we could only get through into 
Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got^ oh! 
such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend 
there’s a way of getting through into it, some- 
how, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got 
all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. 
Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I 
declare ! It’ll be easy enough to get through — ” 
She was up on the chimney-piece while she 
said this, though she hardly knew how she had 
got there. And certainly the glass was begin- 
ning to melt away, just like a bright silvery 
mist. 

In another moment Alice was through the 
glass, and had jumped lightly down into the 
Looking-glass room. The very first thing she 

[ 9 ] 




did was to look whether there was a fire in the 
fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that 
there was a real one, blazing away as brightly y j j j 
as the one she had left behind. “So I shall be r 
as warm here as I was in the old room,” 
thought Alice: “warmer, in fact, because 
there’ll be no one here to scold me away from 
the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, when they see 
me through the glass in here, and can’t get 
at me!” 

Then she began looking about, and noticed 
that what could be seen from the old room was 
quite common and uninteresting, but that all 
the rest was as different as possible. For in- 
stance, the pictures on the wall next the fire 
seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the 
chimney-piece (you know you can only see the 
back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the 
face of a little old man, and grinned at her. 

“They don’t keep this room so tidy as the 
other,” Alice thought to herself, as she noticed 
several of the chessmen down in the hearth 
among the cinders; but in another moment, 

[10] 





Wi 

OT3NG GLASS 



with a little “Oh!” of surprise, she was down on 
her hands and knees watching them. The 
chessmen were walking about, two and two! 

“Here are the Red King and the Red 
Queen,” Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of 
frightening them), “and there are the White 
King and the White Queen sitting on the edge 
of the shovel — and here are two Castles walk- 
ing arm in arm — I don’t think they can hear/ 
me,” she went on, as she put her head closer 
down, “and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. 
I feel somehow as if I was getting in- 
visible ” 

Here something began squeaking on the 
table behind Alice, and made her turn her head 
just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll 
over and begin kicking: she watched it with 
great curiosity to see what would happen 
next. 

“It is the voice of my child!” the White 
Queen cried out, as she rushed past the King, 
so violently that she knocked him over among 
the cinders. “My precious Lily! My imperial < 

[ii] 


kitten !” and she began scrambling wildly up 
the side of the fender. 

Imperial fiddlestick!” said the King, rub- 

— — ” 


LA) 0 

bing his nose, which had been hurt by the fall. \1a 


He had a right to be a little annoyed with the ^ 
Queen, for he was covered with ashes from q A V* 
head to foot. 4 \ 

Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as 


the poor little Lily was nearly screaming her- 
self into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen 
and set her on the table by the side of her noisy 
little daughter. 

The Queen gasped, and sat down ; the rapid 
journey through the air had quite taken away 
her breath, and for a minute or two she could 
do nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. 
As soon as she had recovered her breath a little, 
she called out to the White King, who was sit- 
ting sulkily among the ashes, “Mind the 
volcano!” 

“What volcano?” said the King, looking up 
anxiously into the fire, as if he thought that 
was the most likely place to find one. 






MING GLASS 


“Blew — me — up,” panted the Queen, who 
was still a little out of breath. “Mind you come 
up — the regular way — don’t get blown up !” 

Alice watched the White King as he slowly 
struggled up from bar to bar, till at last she 
said, “Why, you’ll be hours and hours getting 
to the table, at that rate. I’d far better help 
you, hadn’t I?” But the King took no notice 
of the question : it was quite clear that he could 
neither hear her nor see her. 

So Alice picked him up very gently, and 
lifted him across more slowly than she had 
lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his 
breath away; but, before she put him on the 
table, she thought she might as well dust him a 
little, he was so covered with ashes. 

She said afterwards that she had never seen 
in all her life such a face as the King made, 
when he found himself held in the air by an 
invisible hand, and being dusted: he was far 
too much astonished to cry out, but his eyes and 
his mouth went on getting larger and larger, 
and rounder and rounder, till her hand shook 




THROUGH THE 


so with laughing that she nearly let him drop 
upon the floor. 

“Oh! please don’t make such faces, my 
dear!” she cried out, quite forgetting that the 
King couldn’t hear her. “You make me laugh 
so that I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep 
your mouth so wide open! All the ashes will 
get into it — there, now I think you’re tidy 
enough!” she added, as she smoothed his hair, 
and set him upon the table near the Queen. 

The King immediately fell flat on his back, 
and lay perfectly still; and Alice was a little 
alarmed at what she had done, and went round 
the room to see if she could find any water to 
throw over him. However, she could find 
nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got 
back with it she found he had recovered, and 
he and the Queen were talking together in a 
frightened whisper — so low that Alice could 
hardly hear what they said. 

The King was saying, “I assure you, my 
dear, I turned cold to the very ends of my 
whiskers !” 



[ 14 ] 


To which the Queen replied, “You haven’t 
got any whiskers.” 

“The horror of that moment,” the King went 
on, “I shall never, never forget!” 

“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you 
don’t make a memorandum of it.” 

Alice looked on with great interest as the 
King took an enormous memorandum-book 
out of his pocket and began writing. A sudden 
thought struck her, and she took hold of the 
end of the pencil, which came some way over 
his shoulder, and began writing for him. 

The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, 
and struggled with the pencil for some time 
without saying anything; but Alice was too 
strong for him, and at last he 
panted out, “My dear! I really 
must get a thinner pencil. I can’t 
manage this one a bit ; it writes all 
manner of things that I don’t 
intend ” 

“What manner of things?” said 
the Queen, looking over the book 
[ 15 ] 





THR9U0H THE 


(in which Alice had put “The White Knight is 




sliding down the poker . He balances very 
badly”) “That’s not a memorandum of your 
feelings !” 

There was a book lying near Alice on the 
table, and while she sat watching the White 
King (for she was still a little anxious about 
him, and had the ink all ready to throw over 
him in case he fainted again), she turned over 
the leaves to find some part that she could read, 
“For it’s all in some language I don’t know,” 
she said to herself. 

It was like this: 


«tt hwo biCL 

sto vm: ymroiitt Mk 
fcsvk 


She puzzled over this for some time, but 
at last a bright thought struck her. “Why, 
it’s a Looking-glass book, of course! And if 

; tie] 


LWKING GLASS 

I hold it up to a glass the words will all go the 
right way again.” 

This was the poem that Alice read: 

JABBERWOCKY 

’ Twas brillig , and the slithy toves 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: 

All mimsy were the borogoves. 

And the mome raths outgrabe. 

“ Beware the Jabberwock , my son ! 

The jaws that bite , the claws that catch ! 
Beware the Jubjub bird , and shun 
The frumious Bander snatch!" 

He took his vorpal sword in hand: 

Long time the manxome foe he sought — 

So rested he by the Tumtum tree 9 
And stood awhile in thought . 

And , as in uffish thought he stood , 

The J abberwock, with eyes of flame , 

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood , 

And burbled as it came ! 






THROUGH THE 


One, two ! One, two! And through and through 
The vorpal blade went snicker- snack ! 

He left it dead, and with its head 
He went galumphing back . 

“ And hast thou slam the Jabberwock? 

Come to my arms, my beamish boy! 

0 frabjous day! Callooh ! C allay!” 

He chortled in his joy . 

9 Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: 

All mimsy were the borogoves. 

And the mome raths outgrabe 

“It seems very pretty,” she said when she 
had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to under- 
stand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, 
even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out 
at all. ) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with 
ideas — only I don’t exactly know what they 
are! However, somebody killed something ; 
that’s clear, at any rate ” 

“But oh!” thought Alice, suddenly jumping 
up, “if I don’t make haste I shall have to go 
[ 18 ] 





MNG GLASS 


back through the Looking-glass before I’ve 
seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s 
have a look at the garden first!” She was out 
of the room in a moment, and ran downstairs 
— or, at least, it wasn’t exactly running, but a 
new invention for getting downstairs quickly 
and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just 
kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail and 
floated gently down without even touching the 
stairs with her feet ; then she floated on through 
the hall, and would have gone straight out at 
the door in the same way if she hadn’t caught 
hold of the door-post. She was getting a little 
giddy with so much floating in the air, and was 
rather glad to find herself walking again in the 
natural way. 



THROUGH THE 





THE GARDEN OF LIVE FLOWERS 

SHOULD see the garden far better,” 
said Alice to herself, “if I could get to 
the top of that hill; and here’s a path 
that leads straight to it — at least, no, it doesn’t 
do that — ” (after going a few yards along the 
path, and turning several sharp corners), “but 
I suppose it will at last. But how curiously it 
twists ! It’s more like a corkscrew than a path ! 
Well, this turn goes to the hill, I suppose — no, 
it doesn’t! This goes straight back to the 
house! Well, then, I’ll try it the other way.” 

And so she did, wandering up and down and 
trying turn after turn, hut always coming back 
to the house, do what she would. Indeed, once, 
when she had turned a corner rather more 
quickly than usual, she ran against it before she 
could stop herself. 

“It’s no use talking about it,” Alice said, 

[ 20 ] 




MUG GLASS 

looking up at the house and pretending it was 
arguing with her. “I’m not going in again 
yet. I know I should have to get through the 
Looking-glass again — back into the old room 
— and there’d be an end of all my adven- 
tures!” 

So, resolutely turning her back upon the 
house, she set out once more down the path, , 
determined to keep straight on till she got to 
the hill. For a few minutes all went on well, 
and she was just saying, “I really shall do it 
this time — ” when the path gave a sudden 
twist and shook itself (as she described it after- 
wards) , and the next moment she found herself 
actually walking in at the door. 

“Oh, it’s too bad!” she cried. “I never saw 
such a house for getting in the way! Never!” 

However, there was the hill in full sight, so 
there was nothing to be done but start again. 
This time she came upon a large flower-bed, 
with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree 
growing in the middle. 

“O Tiger-lily!” said Alice, addressing her- 




THROUGH THE 


self to one that was waving gracefully about 
in the wind, “I wish you could talk!” 

“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily, “when 
there’s anybody worth talking to.” 

Alice was so astonished that she couldn’t 
speak for a minute : it quite seemed to take her 
breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only 
went on waving about, she spoke again, in a 
timid voice — almost in a whisper. “And can 
all the flowers talk?” 

“As well as you can,” said the Tiger-lily. 
“And a great deal louder.” 

“It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,” 
said the Rose, “and I really was wondering 
when you’d speak ! Said I to myself, ‘Her face 
has got some sense in it, though it’s not a clever 
one!’ Still, you’re the right color, and that 
goes a long way.” 

“I don’t care about the color,” the Tiger- 
lily remarked. “If only her petals curled up a 
little more, she’d be all right.” 

Alice didn’t like being criticized, so she be- 
gan asking questions. “Aren’t you sometimes 
[ 22 ] 


L®KING GLASS 

frightened at being planted out here, with no- 
body to take care of you?” 

“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the 
Rose. “What else is it good for?” 

“But what could it do if any danger came?” 
Alice asked. 

“It could bark,” said the Rose. 

“It says, ‘Bough-wough!’” cried a Daisy. 
“That’s why its branches are called 
boughs !” 

“Didn’t you know that?” cried another Daisy. 
And here they all began shouting together, till 
the air seemed quite full of little shrill voices. 
“Silence, every one of you!” cried the Tiger- 
lily, waving itself passionately from side to side 
and trembling with excitement. “They know 
I can’t get at them!” 
it panted, bending its 
quivering head towards 
Alice, “or they wouldn’t 
dare to do it!” 

“Never mind!” Alice 
said in a soothing tone, 






THROUGH THE 




and, stooping down to the daisies, who were 
just beginning again, she whispered, “If you 
; 7 ' don’t hold your tongues I’ll pick you!” 

There was silence in a moment, and several 
of the pink daisies turned white. 

“That’s right!” said the Tiger-lily. “The 
Q Daisies are worst of all. When one speaks, 
they all begin together, and it’s enough to make 
one wither to hear the way they go on!” 

“How is it you can all talk so nicely?” Alice 
said, hoping to get it into a better temper by a 
compliment. “I’ve been in many gardens be- 
fore, but none of the flowers could talk.” 

“Put your hand down and feel the ground,” 
said the Tiger-lily. “Then you’ll know why.” 

Alice did so. “It’s very hard,” she said; 
“but I don’t see what that has to do with it.” 

“In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “they 
make the beds too soft — so that the flowers are 
always asleep.” 

This sounded a very good reason, and Alice 
was quite pleased to know it. “I never thought 
of that before!” she said. 

[ 24 ] 




EMONG GLASS 

“It’s my opinion that you never think at all ” 
the Rose said, in a rather severe tone. 

“I never saw anybody that looked stupider,” 
a Violet said so suddenly that Alice quite 
jumped, for it hadn’t spoken before. 

“Hold your tongue!” cried the Tiger- 
lily. “As if you ever saw anybody! You 
keep your head under the leaves, and snore 
away there till you know no more what’s 
going on in the world than if you were a 
bud!” 

“Are there any more people in the garden 
besides me?” Alice said, not choosing to notice 
the Rose’s last remark. 

“There’s one other flower in the garden that 
can move about like you,” said the Rose. “I 
wonder how you do it — ” (“You’re always 
wondering,” said the Tiger-lily), “but she’s 
more bushy than you are.” 

“Is she like me?” Alice asked eagerly, for 
the thought crossed her mind, “There’s another 
little girl in the garden somewhere!” 

“Well, she has the same awkward shape as 
[ 25 ] 




you,” the Rose said; “but she’s redder — and 
her petals are shorter, I think.” 

“They’re done up close, like a Dahlia,” said 
the Tiger-lily; “not tumbled about like yours.” 

“But that’s not your fault,” the Rose added 
kindly. “You’re beginning to fade, you know 
— and then one can’t help one’s petals getting 
a little untidy.” 

Alice didn’t like this idea at all ; so, to change 
the subject, she asked, “Does she ever come 
out here?” 

“I daresay you’ll see her soon,” said the 
Rose. “She’s one of the kind that has nine 
spikes, you know.” 

“Where does she wear them?” Alice asked 
with some curiosity. 

“Why, all round her head, of course,” the 
Rose replied. “I was wondering you hadn’t 
got some, too. I thought it was the regular rule.” 

“She’s coming!” cried the Larkspur. “I 
hear her footstep, thump, thump, along the 
gravel- walk !” 

Alice looked round eagerly and found that 

[ 26 ] 




ttl 


INKING GLASS 

it was the Red Queen. “She’s grown a good 
deal!” was her first remark. She had indeed: 
when Alice first found her in the ashes she had 
been only three inches high — and here she was 
half a head taller than Alice herself! 

“It’s the fresh air that does it,” said the 
Rose; “wonderfully fine air it is out here.” 

“I think I’ll go and meet her,” said Alice, 
for though the flowers were interesting enough, 
she felt that it would be far grander to have a 
talk with a real Queen. 

“You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose. 
“7 should advise you to walk the other way.” 

This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said 
nothing, but set off at once towards the Red 
Queen. To her surprise she lost sight of her 
in a moment, and found herself walking in at 
the front door again. 

A little provoked, she drew back, and after 
looking everywhere for the Queen (whom she 
spied out at last, a long way off) she thought 
she would try the plan this time of walking 
in the opposite direction. 

[ 27 ] 







THROUGH THE 


It succeeded beautifully. She had not been 
walking a minute before she found herself face 
to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of 
the hill she had been so long aiming at. 

“Where do you come from?” said the Red 
Queen. “And where are you going? Look up, 
speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all 
the time.” 

Alice attended to all these directions, and 
explained, as well as she could, that she had 
lost her way. 

“I don’t know what you mean by your way,” 
said the Queen; “all the ways about here be- 
long to me — but why did you come out here at 
all ?” she added in a kinder tone. “Curtsey while 
you’re thinking what to say. It saves time.” 

Alice wondered a little at this, but she was 
too much in awe of the Queen to disbelieve it. 
“I’ll try it when I go home,” she thought to 
herself, “the next time I’m a little late for 
dinner.” 

“It’s time for you to answer now,” the Queen 
said, looking at her watch; “open your mouth 
[ 28 ] 



a little wider when you speak, and always say 
‘your Majesty.’ ” 

“I only wanted to see what the garden was 
like, your Majesty ” 

“That’s right,” said the Queen, patting her 
on the head, which Alice didn’t like at all; 
“though when you say ‘garden ’ — Tve seen 
gardens compared with which this would be a 
wilderness.” 

Alice didn’t dare to argue the point, but 
went on: “ — and I thought I’d try and find 
my way to the top of that hill ” 

“When you say ‘hill,’ ” the Queen inter- 
rupted, “I could show you hills in comparison 
with which you’d call that a valley.” 

“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into 
contradicting her at last; “a hill can't be a 
valley, you know. That would be non- 
sense ” 

The Red Queen shook her head. “You may 
call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but 
I've heard nonsense compared with which that 
would be as sensible as a dictionary 1” 

[ 29 ] 


Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid 
from the Queen’s tone that she was a little 
offended, and they walked on in silence till they 
got to the top of the little hill. 

For some minutes Alice stood without 
speaking, looking out in all directions over 
the country — and a most curious country it 
was. There were a number of tiny little 
brooks running straight across it from side 
to side, and the ground between was di- 
vided up into squares by a number of little 
green hedges, that reached from brook to 
brook. 

“I declare, it’s marked out just like a large 
chess-board!” Alice said at last. “There ought 
to be some men moving about somewhere — 
and so there are!” she added in a tone of de- 
light, and her heart began to beat quick with 
excitement as she went on. “It’s a great, huge 
game of chess that’s being played — all over the 
world — if this is the world at all, you know. 
Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of 


L/m* ^ V 




MNOOLASS 

I might join — though of course I should like 
to be a Queen best . 5 

She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen ^ 
as she said this, but her companion only smiled ' 
pleasantly, and said, “That’s easily managed. 
You can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you 
like, as Lily’s too young to play; and you’re in 
the Second Square to begin with. When you 
get to the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen — ”/ ' 
Just at this moment, somehow or other, they 
began to run. 

Alice never could quite make out, in think- 
ing it over afterwards, how it was that they 
began; all she remembers is, that they were 
running hand in hand, and the Queen went so 
fast that it was all she could do to keep up with 
her; and still the Queen kept crying, “Faster I 
Faster!” but Alice felt she could not go faster, 
though she had no breath left to say so. 

The most curious part of the thing was, that 
the trees and the other things round them never 
changed their places at all: however fast they 
went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I 


Wf- HI SIS® 

THROUGH THE 



wonder if all the things move along with us?” 
thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen 
seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, 
“Faster! Don’t try to talk!” 

Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. 
She felt as if she would never be able to talk 
>/} again, she was getting so much out of breath: 
v\and still the Queen cried, “Faster! Faster!” 
and dragged her along. “Are we nearly there?” 
Alice managed to pant out at last. 

“Nearly there !” the Queen repeated. “Why, 
we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!” And 
they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind 
whistling in Alice’s ears, and almost blowing 
her hair off her head, she fancied. 

“Now! Now!” cried the Queen. “Faster! 
Faster!” And they went so fast that at last 
they seemed to skim through the air, hardly 
touching the ground with their feet, till sud- 
denly, just as Alice was getting quite ex- 
hausted, they stopped, and she found herself 
sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. 
The Queen propped her up against a tree, 






LIKING GLASS 

and said kindly, “You may rest a little 
now.” 

Alice looked round her in great surprise. 
“Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree 
the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!” 

“Of course it is,” said the Queen. “What 
would you have it?” 

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still pant- 
ing a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere 
else — if you ran very fast for a long time as 
we’ve been doing.” 

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. 
“Now here , you see, it takes all the running 
you can do to keep in the same place. If 
you want to get somewhere else, you must run 
at least twice as fast as that!” 

“I’d rather not try, please !” said Alice. “I’m 
quite content to stay here — only I am so hot 
and thirsty !” 

“I know what you'd like!” the Queen said 
good-naturedly, taking a little box out of her 
pocket. “Have a biscuit?” 

Alice thought it would not be civil to say 
[ 33 ] 







THROUGH THE 


“No,” though it wasn’t at all what she wanted. 
So she took it, and ate it as well as she could ; 
and it was very dry; and she thought she had 
never been so nearly choked in all her life. 

“While you’re refreshing yourself,” said the 
Queen, “I’ll just take the measurements.” 
And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, 
marked in inches, and began measuring the 
ground, and sticking little pegs in here and 
there. 

“At the end of two yards,” she said, putting 
in a peg to mark the distance, “I shall give you 
your directions — have another biscuit?” 

“No, thank you,” said Alice; “one’s quite 
enough!” 

“Thirst quenched, I hope?” said the Queen. 

Alice did not know what to say to this, but 
luckily the Queen did not wait for an answer, 
but went on: “At the end of three yards I shall 
repeat them — for fear of your forgetting them. 
At the end of four I shall say good-bye. And 
at the end of five I shall go!” 


and Alice looked on with great interest as she 
returned to the tree, and then began slowly 
walking down the row. 

At the two-yard peg she faced round, and 
said, “A pawn goes two squares in its first 
move, you know. So you’ll go very quickly 
through the Third Square — by railway, I 
should think — and you’ll find yourself in the 
Fourth Square in no time. Well, that square 
belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee — the 
Fifth is mostly water — the Sixth belongs to 
Humpty Dumpty — But you make no re- 
mark?” 

“I — I didn’t know I had to make one — just 
then,” Alice faltered out. 

“You should have said,” the Queen went on 
in a tone of grave reproof, “ ‘It’s extremely 
kind of you to tell me all this’ — however, we’ll 
suppose it said — the Seventh Square is all forest 
— however, one of the Knights will show you 
the way — and in the Eighth Square we shall be 
Queens together, and it’s all feasting and fun!” 
Alice got up and curtseyed and sat down again. 
[ 35 ] 




m 








THRPUOH THE 



At the next peg the Queen turned again, 
and this time she said, “Speak in French when 
/ /f js y° u can’t think of the English for a thing — 
turn out your toes as you walk — and remem- 
ber who you are !” She did not wait for Alice 
to curtsey this time, but walked on quickly to 
M) the next peg, where she turned for a moment to 
\ say “Good-bye,” and then hurried on to the last. 
How it happened Alice never knew, but 
exactly as she came to the last peg she was 
gone. Whether she vanished into the air or 
whether she ran quickly into the wood (“and 
she can run very fast!” thought Alice), there 
was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and 
Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, 
and that it would soon be time for her to move. 












MING GLASS 




LOOKING-GLASS INSECTS 

O F course the first thing to do was to 
make a grand survey of the country 
she was going to travel through. 
“It’s something very like learning geography,” 
thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes 
of being able to see a little further. “Princi- 
pal rivers — there are none. Principal moun- 
tains — I’m on the only one, but I don’t think 
it’s got any name. Principal towns — why, 
what are those creatures, making honey down 
there? They can’t be bees — nobody ever saw 
bees a mile off, you know — ” and for some time 
she stood silent, watching one of them that was 
bustling about among the flowers, poking its 
proboscis into them, “just as if it was a regular 
bee,” thought Alice. 

However, this was anything but a regular 
bee ; in fact, it was an elephant — as Alice soon 
[ 37 ] 



found out, though the idea quite took her 
breath away at first. 4 ‘And what enormous 
flowers they must be!” was her next idea. 
“Something like cottages with the roofs taken 
off, and stalks put to them — and what quanti- 
ties of honey they must make! I think I’ll go 
down and — no, I won’t go just yet,” she went 
on, checking herself just as she was beginning 
to run down the hill, and trying to find some 
excuse for turning shy so suddenly. “It’ll 
never do to go down among them without a 
good long branch to brush them away — 
and what fun it’ll be when they ask me 
how I liked my walk. I shall say, ‘Oh, I 
liked it well enough — 5 (here came the 
favourite little toss of the head), ‘only it 
was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did 
tease so!’ 

“I think I’ll go down the other way,” she said 
after a pause; “and perhaps I may visit the 
elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to 
get into the Third Square!” 

So, with this excuse, she ran down the hill 




MING GLASS 


and jumped over the first of the six little 
brooks. 

* * * * * 

* * * * 
***** 

“Tickets, please!” said the Guard, putting 
his head in at the window. In a moment every- 
body was holding out a ticket : they were about 
the same size as the people, and quite seemed 
to fill the carriage. 

“Now, then! Show your ticket, child!” the 
Guard went on, looking angrily at Alice. And 
a great many voices all said together (“like the 
chorus of a song,” thought Alice) , “Don’t keep 
him waiting, child! Why, his time is worth a 
thousand pounds a minute!” 

“I’m afraid I haven’t got one,” Alice said in 
a frightened tone; “there wasn’t a ticket-office 
where I came from.” And again the chorus of 
voices went on. “There wasn’t room for one 
where she came from. The land there is worth 
a thousand pounds an inch!” 

“Don’t make excuses,” said the Guard; “you 
[ 39 ] 

r ^7 





THROUGH THE 


should have bought one from the engine- 
driver.” And once more the chorus of voices 
went on with, “The man that drives the engine. 
Why, the smoke alone is worth a thousand 
pounds a puff!” 

Alice thought to herself, “Then there’s no 
use in speaking.” The voices didn’t join in 
this time, as she hadn’t spoken, but, to her great 
surprise, they all thought in chorus ( I hope you 
you understand what thinking in chorus means 
— for I must confess that 1 don’t) , “Better say 
nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand 
pounds a word!” 

“I shall dream about a thousand pounds 
to-night, I know I shall!” thought Alice. 

All this time the Guard was looking at her, 
first through a telescope, then through a 
microscope, and then through an opera- 
glass. At last he said, “You’re traveling the 
wrong way,” and shut up the window and 
went away. 

“So young a child,” said the gentleman sit- 
ting opposite to her (he was dressed in white 
[ 40 ] 




INKING GLASS 


paper) , “ought to know which way she’s going, 
even if she doesn’t know her own name!” 

A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentle- 
man in white, shut his eyes and said in a loud 
voice, “She ought to know her way to the 
ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her 
alphabet !” 

There was a Beetle sitting next the Goat (it 
was a very queer carriage-full of passengers 
altogether), and, as the rule seemed to be that 
they should all speak in turn, he went on with, 
“She’ll have to go back from here as luggage!” 

Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond 
the Beetle, but a hoarse voice spoke next. 
“Change engines — ” it said, and there it choked 
and was obliged to leave off. 

“It sounds like a horse,” Alice thought to 
herself. And an extremely small voice, close to 

her ear, said, “You might make a joke on that— something about ‘horse’ and 
‘hoarse,’ you know.” 

Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, 
“She must be labeled, ‘Lass, with care,’ you 
know ” 




THRPUGH THE 


And after that other voices went on (“What 
a number of people there are in the carriage!” 
thought Alice), saying, “She must go by post, 
as she’s got a head on her — ” “She must be 
sent as a message by the telegraph — ” “She 
must draw the train herself the rest of the 
way — ,” and so on. 

But the gentleman dressed in white paper 
leaned forwards and whispered in her ear, 
“Never mind what they all say, my dear, but 
take a return-ticket every time the train stops.” 

“Indeed I sha’n’t!” Alice said rather impa- 
tiently. “I don’t belong to this railway jour- 
ney at all. I was in a wood just now — and I 
wish I could get back there!” 

“You might make a joke on that" Said the little Voice doSe 
to her ear | “something about ‘you would if you could,’ you know.” 

“Don’t tease so,” said Alice, looking about in 
vain to see where the voice came from. “If 
you’re so anxious to have a joke made, why 
don’t you make one yourself?” 

The little voice sighed deeply. It was very 
unhappy, evidently, and Alice would have said 
[ 42 ] 



something pitying to comfort it, “if it would 
only sigh like other people!” she thought. But 
this was such a wonderfully small sigh that she 
wouldn’t have heard it at all if it hadn’t come 
quite close to her ear. The consequence of this 
was that it tickled her ear very much, and quite 
took off her thoughts from the unhappiness of 
the poor little creature. 

“I know you are a friend,” the little voice went on J “a dear 

friend, and an old friend. And’you won’t hurt me, though I am an insect.” 

“What kind of insect?” Alice inquired, a 
little anxiously. What she really wanted to 
know was, whether it could sting or not, but 
she thought this wouldn’t be quite a civil ques- 
tion to ask. 

“What, then you don’t ” the little voice began, 

when it was drowned by a shrill scream from 
the engine, and everybody jumped up in alarm, 
Alice among the rest. 

The Horse, who had put his head out of the 
window, quietly drew it in and said, “It’s only 
a brook we have to jump over.” Everybody 
seemed satisfied with this, though Alice felt a 
[ 43 ] 


little nervous at the idea of trains jumping at 
all. “However, it’ll take us into the Fourth 
Square, that’s some comfort!” she said to her- 
self. In another moment she felt the carriage 
rise straight up into the air, and in her fright ' 
she caught at the thing nearest to her hand, 
which happened to be the Goat’s beard. 


But the beard seemed to melt away as she 
touched it, and she found herself sitting quietly 
under a tree — while the Gnat (for that was 
the insect she had been talking to) was balanc- 
ing itself on a twig just over her head and 
fanning her with its wings. 

It certainly was a very large Gnat ; “about 
the size of a chicken,” Alice thought. Still, she 
couldn’t feel nervous with it, after they had 
been talking together so long. 

“ — then you don’t like all insects?” the Gnat 
went on, as quietly as if nothing had happened. 
“I like them when they can talk,” Alice 


said. “None of them ever talk where I come 
from.” 

“What sort of insects do you rejoice in 
where you come from?” the Gnat inquired. 

“I don’t rejoice in insects at all,” Alice ex- 
plained, “because I’m rather afraid of them — 
at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the 
names of some of them.” 

“Of course they answer to their names?” the 
Gnat remarked carelessly. 

“I never knew them to do it.” 

“What’s the use of their having names,” the 
Gnat said, “if they won’t answer to them?” 

“No use to them” said Alice ; “but it’s useful 
to the people that name them, I suppose. If 
not, why do things have names at all?” 

“I can’t say,” the Gnat replied. “Further 
on, in the wood down there, they’ve got no 
names — however, go on with your list of in- 
sects; you’re wasting time.” 

“Well, there’s the Horse-fly,” Alice began, 
counting off the names on her fingers. 

“All right,” said the Gnat. “Half-way up 



THRPUGH THE 


that bush you’ll see a Rocking-horse-fly, if you 
look. It’s made entirely of wood, and gets 
about by swinging itself from branch to 
branch.” 

“What does it live on?” Alice asked, with 
great curiosity. 

“Sap and sawdust,” said the Gnat. “Go on 
with the list.” 

Alice looked at the Rocking-horse-fly with 
great interest, and made up her mind that it 
must have been just repainted, it looked so 
bright and sticky ; and then she went on. 

“And there’s the Dragon-fly.” 

“Look on the branch above your head,” said 
the Gnat, “and there you’ll find a Snap- 
dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, 
its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin 
burning in brandy.” 

“And what does it live on?” Alice asked, as 
before. 

“Frumenty and mince-pie,” the Gnat re- 
plied; “and it makes its nest in a Christmas- 
box.” 



INKING GLASS 



“And then there’s the Butterfly,” Alice went 
on, after she had taken a good look at the in- 
sect with its head on fire, and had thought to 
herself, “I wonder if that’s the reason insects 
are so fond of flying into candles — because they 
want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!” 

“Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat 
(Alice drew her feet back in some alarm) , “y ou 
may observe a Bread-and-butter-fly. Its wings 
are thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a 
crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.” 

“And what does it live on?” 

“Weak tea with cream in it.” 

A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. 
“Supposing it couldn’t find any?” she sug- 
gested. 

“Then it would die, of course.” 

“But that must happen very often,” Alice 
remarked thoughtfully. 

“It always happens,” said the Gnat. 

After this Alice was silent for a minute or 
two, pondering. The Gnat amused itself mean- 
while by humming round and round her head : 





THROUGH THE 


at last it settled again and remarked, “I sup- 
pose you don’t want to lose your name?” 

“No, indeed,” Alice said, a little anxiously. 

“And yet I don’t know,” the Gnat went on 
in a careless tone; “only think how convenient 
it would be if you could manage to go home 
without it! For instance, if the governess 
wanted to call you to your lessons, she would 
call out, ‘Come here — ’ and there she would 
have to leave off, because there wouldn’t be any 
name for her to call, and of course you wouldn’t 
have to go, you know.” 

“That would never do, I’m sure,” said Alice; 
“the governess would never think of excusing 
me lessons for that. If she couldn’t remember 
my name, she’d call me ‘Miss,’ as the servants 
do.” 

“Well, if she said ‘Miss,’ and didn’t say any- 
thing more,” the Gnat remarked, “of course 
you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke. I wish 
you had made it.” 

“Why do you wish I had made it?” Alice 
asked. “It’s a very bad one.” 


But the Gnat only sighed deeply, while two 
large tears came rolling down its cheeks. 

“You shouldn’t make jokes,” Alice said, “if 
it makes you so unhappy.” 

Then came another of those melancholy little 
sighs, and this time the poor Gnat really 
seemed to have sighed itself away, for when 
Alice looked up there was nothing whatever 
to be seen on the twig, and as she was getting 
quite chilly with sitting still so long, she got up 
and walked on. 

She very soon came to an open field, with a 
wood on the other side of it; it looked much 
darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a little 
timid about going into it. However, on second 
thoughts, she made up her mind to go on: “for 
I certainly won’t go back ” she thought to her- 
self, and this was the only way to the Eighth 
Square. 

“This must be the wood,” she said thought- 
fully to herself, “where things have no names. 
I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go 
in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all — because 
[ 49 ] 




THROUGH THE 



BS 



they’d have to give me another, and it would be 
almost certain to be an ugly one. But then the 
7 ; fun would be trying to find the creature that 

had got my old name ! That’s just like the adver- mj 
tisements, you know, when people lose dogs — 
r answers to the name of “Dash”; had on a brass 
collar * — just fancy calling everything you met 
ro ‘Alice’ till one of them answered! Only they 
wouldn’t answer at all, if they were wise!” 

She was rambling on in this way when she 
reached the wood; it looked very cool and 
shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great com- 
fort,” she said as she stepped under the trees, 

“after being so hot, to get into the — into the — 
into what V* she went on, rather surprised at not 
being able to think of the word. “I mean to get 
under the — under the — under this, you know!” 
putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. 

“What does it call itself, I wonder ? I do believe 
it’s got no name — why, to be sure it hasn’t!” 

She stood silent for a minute, thinking ; then 
she suddenly began again. “Then it really has 
happened, after all! And now, who am I? I 

[ 50 ] 

O' 

S 




tit. 


will remember, if I can! I’m determined to 
do it!” But being determined didn’t help her 
much, and all she could say, after a great deal 
of puzzling, was “L, I know it begins with L!” 

Just then a Fawn came wandering by. It 
looked at Alice with its large, gentle eyes, but 
didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here 
then!” Alice said, as she held out her hand and 
tried to stroke it; but it only started back a 
little, and then stood looking at her again. 

“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said 
at last. Such a soft, sweet voice it had! 

“I wish I knew!” thought poor Alice. She 
answered, rather sadly, “Nothing, just now.” 

“Think again,” it said; “that won’t do.” 

Alice thought, but nothing came of it. 
“Please, would you tell me what you call your- 
self?” she said timidly. “I think that might 
help a little.” 

“I’ll tell you, if you’ll come a little further 
on,” the Fawn said. “I can’t remember here ." 

So they walked on together through the wood, 
Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the 
[ 51 ] 







THROUGH THE 


soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into 
another open field, and here the Fawn gave a 
sudden bound into the air and shook itself free 
from Alice’s arm. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out 
in a voice of delight. “And, dear me! you’re a 
human child!” A sudden look of alarm came 
into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another 
moment it had darted away at full speed. 

Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to 
cry with vexation at having lost her dear little 
fellow-traveler so suddenly. “However, I 
know my name now,” she said; “that’s some 
comfort. Alice — Alice — I won’t forget it 
again. And now, which of these finger-posts 
ought I to follow, I wonder?” 

It was not a very difficult question to answer, 
as there was only one road through the wood, 
and the two finger-posts both pointed along it. 
“I’ll settle it,” Alice said to herself, “when the 
road divides and they point different ways.” 

But this did not seem likely to happen. She 
went on and on, a long way, but, wherever the 
road divided, there were sure to be two finger- 
[ 52 ] 






& smbben look of alarm 
came into its; beautiful eues. 


Page 52 











































































































































































































































































































































posts pointing the same way, one marked “TO 
TWEEDLEDUM’S HOUSE” and the 
other “TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLE- 
DEE.” 

“I do believe,” said Alice at last, “that they 
live in the same house! I wonder I never 
thought of that before. But I can’t stay there 
long. I’ll just call and say, ‘How d’ye do?’ 
and ask them the way out of the wood. If I 
could only get to the Eighth Square before it 
gets dark!” So she wandered on, talking to 
herself as she went, till, on turning a sharp cor- 
ner, she came upon two fat little men so sud- 
denly that she could not help starting back, but 
in another moment she recovered herself, feel- 
ing sure that they must be 



THR9U0H THE 





TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE 

HEY were standing under a tree, each 
with an arm round the other’s neck, 
V' and Alice knew which was which in a 

moment, because one of them had “DUM” 
embroidered on bis collar and the other 
“DEE.” “I suppose they’ve each got 
‘TWEEDLE’ round at the back of the col- 
lar,” she said to herself. 

They stood so still that she quite forgot they 
were alive, and she was just going round to see 
if the word “TWEEDLE” was written at the 
back of each collar when she was startled by a 
voice coming from the one marked “DUM.” 

“If you think we’re wax-works,” he said, 
“you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works 
weren’t made to be looked at for nothing. No- 
how!” 

“Contrariwise,” added the one marked 
[ 54 ] 





tWKlNG GLASS 


“DEE,” “if you think we’re alive, you ought 
to speak.” 

“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” was all Alice 
could say ; for the words of the old song kept 
ringing through her head like the ticking of a 
clock, and she could hardly help saying them 
out loud : 



“ Tweedledum and Tweedledee 
Agreed to have a battle; 

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee 
Had spoiled his nice new rattle. 

Just then flew down a monstrous crow , 

As blach as a tar-barrel; 

Which frightened both the heroes so. 

They quite forgot their quarrel 

“I know what you’re thinking about,” said 
Tweedledum; “but it isn’t so, nohow.” 

“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it 
was so, it might be ; and if it were so, it would 
be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” 

“I was thinking,” Alice said very politely, 


“which is the best way out of this wood; 
it’s getting so dark. Would you tell me, 
please?” 

But the fat little men only looked at each 
other and grinned. 

They looked so exactly like a couple of great 
schoolboys that Alice couldn’t help pointing 
her finger at Tweedledum and saying, “First 
Boy!” 

“Nohow!” Tweedledum cried out briskly, 
and shut his mouth up again with a snap. 

“Next Boy!” said Alice, passing on to 
Tweedledee, though she felt quite certain he 
would only shout out “Contrariwise!” and so 
he did. 

“You’ve begun wrong!” cried Tweedledum. 
“The first thing in a visit is to say, ‘How d’ye 
do?’ and shake hands!” And here the two 
brothers gave each other a hug, and then they 
held out the two hands that were free, to shake 
hands with her. 

Alice did not like shaking hands with either 
of them first, for fear of hurting the other one’s 
[ 56 ] 


LWK1NG GLASS 

feelings; so, as the best way out of the diffi- 
culty, she took hold of both hands at once : the 
next moment they were dancing round in a 
ring. This seemed quite natural (she remem- 
bered afterwards), and she was not even sur- 
prised to hear music playing : it seemed to come 
from the tree under which they were dancing, 
and it was done (as well as she could make it 
out) by the branches rubbing one across the 
other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks. 

“But it certainly was funny” (Alice said 
afterwards, when she was telling her sister the 
history of all this) “to find myself singing, 
‘Here we go round the mulberry bush / I don’t 
know when I began it, but somehow I felt as 
if I’d been singing it a long time!” 

The other two dancers were fat, and very 
soon out of breath. “Four times round is 
enough for one dance,” Tweedledum panted 
out, and they left off dancing as suddenly as 
they had begun; the music stopped at the same 
moment. 

Then they let go of Alice’s hands and stood 

[ 57 ] 




THROUGH THE 


looking at her for a minute: there was a rather 
awkward pause, as Alice didn’t know how to 
begin a conversation with people she had just 
been dancing with. “It would never do to say 
‘How d’ye do?’ now ” she said to herself; “we 
seem to have got beyond that, somehow!” 

“I hope you’re not much tired?” she said at 
last. 

“Nohow. And thank you very much for 
asking,” said Tweedledum. 

“So much obliged!” added Tweedledee. 
“You like poetry?” 

“Ye-es, pretty well — some poetry,” Alice 
said doubtfully. “Would you tell me which 
road leads out of the wood?” 

“What shall I repeat to her?” said Tweedle- 
dee, looking round at Tweedledum with great 
solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question. 

6 'The Walrus ancl the Carpenter is the 
longest,” Tweedledum replied, giving his 
brother an affectionate hug. 

Tweedledee began instantly : 

The sun was shining ” 

[ 58 ] 



LWKltiO GLASS 

Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. “If 
it’s very long,” she said as politely as she could, 

“would you please tell me first which road ” 

Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again : 

“The sun was shining on the sea. 

Shining with alljiis might : 

He did his very best to make 

The billows smooth and bright — 

And this was odd , because it was 
The middle of the night . 

“The moon was shimmg sulkily 
Because she thought the sun 
Had got no business to be there 
After the day was done — 

TVs very rude of him,* she said, 

‘To come and spoil the fun!* 

“The sea was wet as wet could be. 

The sands were dry as dry . 

You could not see a cloud , because 
No cloud was in the sky: 

No birds were flying overhead — 

There were no birds to fly . 




“The Walrus and the Carpenter 
Were walking close at hand: 

They wept like anything to see 
Such quantities of sand: 

'If this were only cleared away , 

They said , 'it would he grand!' 

“ 'If seven maids with seven mops 
Swept it for half a year , 

Do you suppose * the Walrus said f 
' That they could get it clear V 
'I doubt it* said the Carpenter , 
And shed a hitter tear . 

“ '0 Oysters , come and walk with us!* 
The Walrus did beseech . 

*A pleasant walk , a pleasant talk , 
Along the briny beach: 

We cannot do with more than four , 
To give a hand to each.* 

“The eldest Oyster looked at him , 

But never a word he said: 

The eldest Oyster winked his eye> 
And shook his heavy head — 
Meaning to say he did not choose 
To leave the oyster-bed. 


INKING GLASS 

“But four young Oysters hurried up, 

All eager for the treat: 

Their coats were brushed , their faces washed , 
Their shoes were clean and neat — 

And this was odd, because, you know. 

They hadn't any feet. 

“Four other Oysters followed them, 

And yet another four; 

And thick and fast they came at last. 

And more, and more, and more — 

All hopping through the frothy waves. 

And scrambling to the shore. 

“The Walrus and the Carpenter 
Walked on a mile or so, 

And then they rested on a rock 
Conveniently low: 

And all the little Oysters stood 
And waited in a row. 

“ ‘ The time has come,' the Walrus said, 

‘ To talk of many things: 

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — 

Of cabbages — and kings — 

And why the sea is boiling hot — 

And whether pigs have wings' 

[ 61 ] 





** 

THROUGH THE 




But wait a bit ,* the Oysters cried , 

‘ Before we have our chat ; 

For some of us are out of breath. 

And all of us are fat!* 

‘ No hurry!* said the Carpenter. 
They thanked him much for that. 

f A loaf of bread* the Walrus said, 
Ts what we chiefly need: 

Pepper and vinegar besides 
Are very good indeed — 

Now, if you*re ready. Oysters dear. 
We can begin to feed.* 

“ ‘ But not on us!* the Oysters cried. 
Turning a little blue. 

‘ After such kindness, that would be 
A dismal thing to do!* 

‘The night is fine * the Walrus said. 
‘Do you admire the view? 

“ ‘It was so kind of you to come! 
And you are very nice!* 

The Carpenter said nothing but 
‘ Cut us another slice. 

1 wish you were not quite so deaf — 
Vve had to ask you twice!* 

[ 62 ] 

O', 





“ ‘ It seems a shame ,' the Walrus said, 
‘ To play them such a trick . 

After we've brought them out so far. 
And made them trot so quick!' 
The Carpenter said nothing but 
*The butter's spread too thick!' 

“ T weep for you,' the Walrus said: 

T deeply sympathize.' 

With sobs and tears he sorted out 
Those of the largest size 
Holding his pocket-handkerchief 
Before his streaming eyes. 

“ ‘ 0 Oysters ,' said the Carpenter , 

‘ You've had a pleasant run! 

Shall we be trotting home again?' 

But answer came there none — 
And this was scarcely odd, because 
They'd eaten every one." 


“I like the Walrus best,” said Alice, “be- 
cause he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.” 

“He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” 
said Tweedledee. “You see he held his hand- 
kerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t 
count how many he took; contrariwise.” 


[ 63 ] 





“That was mean!” Alice said indignantly. 
‘Then I like the Carpenter best — if he didn’t 
eat so many as the Walrus.” 

“But he ate as many as he could get,” said 
Tweedledum. 

This was a puzzler. After a pause Alice 
began, “Well, they were both very unpleasant 
characters — ” Here she checked herself in 
some alarm at hearing something that sounded 
to her like the puffing of a large steam-engine 
in the wood near them, though she feared it 
was more likely to be a wild beast. “Are there 
any lions or tigers about here?” she asked 
timidly. 

“It’s only the Red King snoring,” said 
Tweedledee. 

“Come and look at him!” the brothers cried, 
and they each took one of Alice’s hands and led 
her up to where the King was sleeping. 

“Isn’t he a lovely sight?” said Tweedledum. 

Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. 
He had a tall red night-cap on, with a tassel, 
and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of 
[ 64 ] 








MG GLASS 

untidy heap, and snoring loud — “fit to snore 
his head off!” as Tweedledum remarked. 

“I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the ^J [ ^ 
damp grass,” said Alice, who was a very 
thoughtful little girl. 

“He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee; 

“and what do you think he’s dreaming about?” J 

Alice said, “Nobody can guess that.” f/ 

“Why, about your Tweedledee exclaimed, (, 
clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if he 
left off dreaming about you, where do you sup- 
pose you’d be?” 

“Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. 

“Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptu- 
ously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only 
a sort of thing in his dream !” 

“If that there King was to wake,” added 
Tweedledum, “you’d go out — bang! — just like 
a candle!” 

“I shouldn’t!” Alice exclaimed indignantly. 
“Besides, if Fm only a sort of thing in his 
dream, what are you, I should like to know?” 

“Ditto,” said Tweedledum. 

[ 65 ] ‘ 

ygr 






THROUGH THE 


“Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee. 

He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t 
help saying, “Hush! You’ll be waking him, 
I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.” 

“Well, it’s no use your talking about waking 
him,” said Tweedledum, “when you’re only one 
of the things in his dream. You know very 
well you’re not real.” 

“I am real!” said Alice, and began to cry. 

“You won’t make yourself a bit realler by 
crying,” Tweedledee remarked; “there’s noth- 
ing to cry about.” 

“If I wasn’t real,” Alice said — half laughing 
through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous — 
“I shouldn’t be able to cry.” 

“I hope you don’t suppose those are real 
tears?” Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of 
great contempt. 

“I know they’re talking nonsense,” Alice 
thought to herself, “and it’s foolish to cry 
about it.” So she brushed away her tears, and 
went on as cheerfully as she could, “At any 
rate, I’d better be getting out of the wood, for 
[ 66 ] 





OTNGGLASS 


really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think 
it’s going to rain?” 

Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over 
himself and his brother, and looked up into it. 
“No, I don’t think it is,” he said; “at least — 
not under here . Nohow.” 

“But it may rain outside?” 

“It may — if it chooses,” said Tweedledee;, 
“we’ve no objection. Contrariwise.” 

“Selfish things!” thought Alice, and she was 
just going to say “Good-night” and leave them 
when Tweedledum sprang out from under the 
umbrella and seized her by the wrist. 

“Do you see that?” he said, in a voice chok- 
ing with passion, and his eyes grew large and 
yellow all in a moment, as he pointed with a 
trembling finger at a small white thing lying 
under the tree. 

“It’s only a rattle,” Alice said, after a care- 
ful examination of the little white thing. “Not 
a rattl e-snake j you know,” she added hastily, 
thinking that he was frightened; “only an old 
rattle — quite old and broken.” 

m 


/ 





'm 

rm 



THROUGH THE 


“I knew it was!” cried Tweedledum, begin- 
ning to stamp about wildly and tear his hair. 
“It's spoilt, of course!” Here he looked at 
Tweedledee, who immediately sat down on the 
ground and tried to hide himself under the 
umbrella. 

< 

Alice laid her hand upon his arm, and said, 
in a soothing tone, “You needn’t be so angry 
about an old rattle.” 

“But it isn't old!” Tweedledum cried, in a 
greater fury than ever. “It’s new >, I tell 
you — I bought it yesterday — my nice new 
RATTLE!” and his voice rose to a perfect 
scream. 

All this time Tweedledee was trying his best 
to fold up the umbrella, with himself in it; 
which was such an extraordinary thing to do 


U* i. 










s&b 

w> 

[MING GLASS 

that it quite took off Alice’s attention from the 
angry brother. But he couldn’t quite succeed, 
and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up in 
the umbrella, with only his head out ; and there 
he lay, opening and shutting his mouth and his 
large eyes — “looking more like a fish than any- 
thing else,” Alice thought. 

“Of course you agree to have a battle?” 
Tweedledum said in a calmer tone. 

“I suppose so,” the other sulkily replied, as 
he crawled out of the umbrella; “only she must 
help us to dress up, you know.” 

So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand 
into the wood, and returned in a minute with 
their arms full of things — such as bolsters, 
blankets, hearth-rugs, tablecloths, dish-covers, 
and coal-scuttles. “I hope you’re a good hand 
at pinning and tying strings?” Tweedledum 
remarked. “Every one of these things has got 
to go on, somehow or other.” 

Alice said afterwards she had never seen 
such a fuss made about anything in all her life 
— the way those two bustled about — and the 
[ 69 ] 






THROUGH THE 


quantity of things they put on — and 




\ 

i 


trouble they gave her in tying strings and 
fastening buttons — “Really, they’ll be more 
like bundles of old clothes than anything else 
by the time they’re ready!” she said to her- 
self, as she arranged a bolster round the neck 
of Tweedledee, “to keep his head from being 
cut off,” as he said. 

“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s 
one of the most serious things that can possibly 
happen to one in a battle — to get one’s head 
cut off.” 

Alice laughed loud, but she managed to turn 
it into a cough, for fear of hurting his feelings. 

“Do I look very pale?” said Tweedledum, 
coming up to have his helmet tied on. (He 
called it a helmet, though it certainly looked 
much more like a saucepan.) 

“Well — yes — a little ” Alice replied gently. 

“I’m very brave generally,” he went on in 
a low voice; “only to-day I happen to have a 
headache.” 

“And Tve got a toothache!” said Tweedle- 
[ 70 ] 



He calleb it a fjelmet, tfjougfj 
it loofeeb like a saucepan. 


Page 70 










































































■ 































































































































































































































































































MHO GLASS 


dee, who had overheard the remark. “I’m far 
worse than you!” 

“Then you’d better not fight to-day,” said 
Alice, thinking it a good opportunity to make 
l peace. 

“We must have a bit of a fight, but I don’t 
care about going on long,” said Tweedledum. 
“What’s the time now?” 

Tweedledee looked at his watch and said, 
“Half-past four.” 

“Let’s fight till six, and then have dinner,” 
said Tweedledum. 

“Very well,” the other said, rather sadly; 
“and she can watch us — only you’d better not 
come very close,” he added; “I generally hit 
everything I can see — when I get really ex- 
cited.” 

“And I hit everything within reach,” cried 
Tweedledum, “whether I can see it or not !” 

Alice laughed. “You must hit the trees 
pretty often, I should think,” she said. 

Tweedledum looked round him with a satis- 
fied smile. “I don’t suppose,” he said, “there’ll 
[ 71 ] 


be a tree left standing for ever so far round 
by the time we’ve finished!” 

“And all about a rattle!” said Alice, still 
hoping to make them a little ashamed of fight- 
ing for such a trifle. 

“I shouldn’t have minded it so much,” 
said Tweedledum, “if it hadn’t been a new 
one.” 

“I wish the monstrous crow would come!” 
thought Alice. 

“There’s only one sword, you know,” 
Tweedledum said to his brother; “but you can 
have the umbrella — it’s quite as sharp. Only 
we must begin quick. It’s getting as dark as 
it can.” 

“And darker,” said Tweedledee. 

It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice 
thought there must be a thunderstorm coming 
on. “What a thick black cloud that is!” she 
said. “And how fast it comes! Why, I do 
believe it’s got wings!” 

“It’s the crow!” Tweedledum cried out in 
a shrill voice of alarm; and the two brothers 
[ 72 ] 




OTNG GLASS 


took to their heels and were out of sight in a 
moment. 

Alice ran a little way into the wood, and 
stopped under a large tree. “It can never get 
at me here ” she thought; “it’s far too large to 
squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish 
it wouldn’t flap its wings so — it makes quite 
a hurricane in the wood — here’s somebody’s 
shawl being blown away I” 






[ 73 ] 


WOOL AND WATER 


S HE caught the shawl as she spoke, and 
looked about for the owner. In another 
moment the White Queen came run- 
ning wildly through the wood, with both arms 
stretched out wide, as if she were flying, and 
Alice very civilly went to meet her with the 
shawl. 

“I’m very glad I happened to be in the 
way,” Alice said, as she helped her to put on 
her shawl again. 

The White Queen only looked at her in a 
helpless, frightened sort of way, and kept re- 
peating something in a whisper to herself that 
sounded like “Bread-and-butter, bread-and- 
butter,” and Alice felt that if there was to be 
any conversation at all, she must manage it 
herself. So she began rather timidly: “Am I 
addressing the White Queen?” 

[ 74 ] 





cS 


'W> 

LIKING GLASS 

“Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing,” the 
Queen said. “It isn’t my notion of the thing, ; 

atalL ” 3 , 

Alice thought it would never do to have an 
argument at the very beginning of their con- 
versation, so she smiled and said, “If your 
Majesty will only tell me the right way to be 
gin, I’ll do it as well as I can.” 

“But I don’t want it done at all!” groaned 
the poor Queen. “I’ve been a-dressing myself 
for the last two hours.” 

It would have been all the better, as it 
seemed to Alice, if she had got some one else 
to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. 
“Every single thing’s crooked,” Alice thought 
to herself, “and she’s all over pins! May I put 
your shawl straight for you?” she added aloud. 

“I don’t know what’s the matter with it!” 
the Queen said, in a melancholy voice. “It’s 
out of temper, I think. I’ve pinned it here, 
and I’ve pinned it there, but there’s no pleasing 
it!” 

“It cant go straight, you know, if you pin s ^y'\ 
[ 75 ] 







THROUGH THE 


it all on one side,” Alice said, as she gently put 
it right for her; “and, dear me, what a state 
your hair is in!” 

“The brush has got entangled in it!” the 
Queen said with a sigh. “And I lost the comb 
yesterday.” 

Alice carefully released the brush, and did 
her best to get the hair into order. “Come, you 
look rather better now!” she said, after altering 
most of the pins. “But really, you should have 
a lady’s-maid !” 

“I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!” the 
Queen said. “Twopence a week, and jam every 
other day.” 

Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, “I 
don’t want you to hire me — and I don’t care 
for jam.” 

“It’s very good jam,” said the Queen. 

“Well, I don’t want any to-day , at any 
rate.” 

“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” 
the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow 
and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day” 
[ 76 ] 



t “It must come sometimes to ‘jam to-day,’ ” 
Alice objected. 

“No, it can’t,” said the Queen. “It’s jam 
every other day; to-day isn’t any other day, 
y° u know.” 

; “I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s 

1 dreadfully confusing!” 
k&± “That’s the effect of living backwards,” the 
Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a 

little giddy at first ” 

“Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great 
astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!” 
\jj “ — but there’s one great advantage in it, that 

one’s memory works both ways.” 

“I’m sure mine only works one way,” Alice 
remarked. “I can’t remember things before 
they happen.” 

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works 
backwards,” the Queen remarked. 

“What sort of things do you remember 
best?” Alice ventured to ask. 

“Oh, things that happened the week after 
next,” the Queen replied in a careless tone. 
[ 77 ] 





THROUGH THE 






“For instance, now,” she went on, sticking a 
large piece of plaster on her finger as she 
spoke, “there’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in 
prison now, being punished; and the trial 
doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday; and of 
course the crime comes last of all.” 

“Suppose he never commits the crime?” said 
Alice. 

“That would be all the better, wouldn’t it?” 
the Queen said, as she bound the plaster round 
her finger with a bit of ribbon. 

Alice felt there was no denying that. “Of 
course it would be all the better,” she said ; “but 
it wouldn’t be all the better his being pun- 
ished.” 

“You’re wrong there , at any rate,” said the 
Queen. “Were you ever punished?” 

“Only for faults,” said Alice. 

“And you were all the better for it, I know!” 
the Queen said triumphantly. 

“Yes, but then I had done the things I was 
punished for,” said Alice; “that makes all 
the difference.” 




[ 78 ] 



“But if you hadn't done them,” the Queen , 
said, “that would have been better still; better, 
and better, and better!” Her voice went higher 
with each “better,” till it got quite to a squeak 
at last. 

Alice was just beginning to say, “There’s a 
mistake somewhere — ” when the Queen began 
screaming so loud that she had to leave the t , 
sentence unfinished. “Oh, oh, oh!” shouted the / 
Queen, shaking her hand about as if she wanted 
to shake it off. “My finger’s bleeding! Oh, 
oh, oh, oh!” 

Her screams were so exactly like the whistle 
of a steam-engine, that Alice had to hold both 
her hands over her ears. 

“What is the matter?” she said, 
as soon as there was a chance of 
making herself heard. “Have 
you pricked your finger?” 

“I haven’t pricked it yet ” the 
Queen said, “but I soon shall — 
oh, oh, oh!” 

“When do you expect to do it?” 

[ 79 ] 




THROUGH THE 



Alice asked, feeling very much inclined to 


8 


laugh. 

“When I fasten my shawl again,” the poor 
Queen groaned out; “the brooch will come un- 
done directly. Oh, oh!” As she said the words 
the brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched 
/\ wildly at it and tried to clasp it again. 

“Take care!” cried Alice. “You’re holding 
it all crooked!” And she caught at the brooch; 
but it was too late : the pin had slipped and the 
Queen had pricked her finger. 

“That accounts for the bleeding, you 
see,” she said to Alice with a smile. “Now 
you understand the way things happen 
here.” 

“But why don’t you scream now V* Alice 
asked, holding her hands ready to put over her 
ears again. 

“Why, I’ve done all the screaming already,” 
said the Queen. “What would be the good of 
having it all over again?” 

By this time it was getting light. “The crow 
vmust have flown away, I think,” said Alice; 
[ 80 ] 




IOT1G GLASS 

“I’m so glad it’s gone. I thought it was the 
night coming on.” 

“I wish I could manage to be glad!” the 
Queen said. “Only I never can remember the 
rule. You must be very happy, living in this 
wood, and being glad whenever you like!” 

“Only it is so very lonely here!” Alice said 
in a melancholy voice; and at the thought of 
her loneliness two large tears came rolling 
down her cheeks. 

“Oh, don’t go on like that!” cried the poor 
Queen, ringing her hands in despair. “Con- 
sider what a great girl you are. Consider what 
a long way you’ve come to-day. Consider what 
o’clock it is. Consider anything, only don’t 
cry!” 

Alice could not help laughing at this, even 
in the midst of her tears. “Can you keep from 
crying by considering things?” she asked. 

“That’s the way it’s done,” the Queen said 
with great decision; “nobody can do two things 
at once, you know. Let’s consider your age to 
begin with — how old are you?” 






THRPUOH THE 



^AAy/> “I’m seven and a half, exactly.” 

“You needn’t say ‘exactually,’ ” the Queen 
remar ked. “I can believe it without that. Now O 
I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just 
one hundred and one, five months and a day.” 

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice. 

“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying 
ft* tone. “Try again; draw a long breath and 
shut your eyes.” 

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she 
said; one can't believe impossible things.” 

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ 1 
said the Queen. “When I was your age I 
always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, 
sometimes I’ve believed as many as six im- 
possible things before breakfast. There goes 
the shawl again!” 

The brooch had come undone as she spoke, 
and a sudden gust of wind blew the Queen’s 
shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread 
out her arms again, and went flying after it, 
and this time she succeeded in catching it for 
herself. “I’ve got it !” she cried in a triumphant 
[ 82 ] 







tone. “Now you shall see me pin it on again, 
all by myself !” 

“Then I hope your finger is better now?” 
Alice said very politely, as she crossed the little 
brook after the Queen. 

* * * * * * 

* * * * * 
****** 

“Oh, much better!” cried the Queen, her 
voice rising into a squeak as she went on. 
“Muchbe-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e- 
ehh!” The last word ended in a long bleat, so 
like a sheep that Alice quite started. 

She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have 
suddenly wrapped herself up in wool. Alice 
rubbed her eyes and looked again. She 
couldn’t make out what had happened at all. 
Was she in a shop? And was that really — was 
it really a sheep that was sitting on the other 
side of the counter? Rub as she would, she 
could make nothing more of it: she was in a 
little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on 
the counter, and opposite to her was an old 
[ 83 ] 



Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair, knitting, and 
every now and then leaving off to look at her 
through a great pair of spectacles. 

“What is it you want to buy?” the Sheep 
said at last, looking up for a moment from her 
knitting. 

“I don’t quite know yet,” Alice said very 
gently. “I should like to look all round me 
first, if I might.” 

“You may look in front of you and on both 
sides, if you like,” said the Sheep; “but you 
can’t look all round you — unless you’ve got 
eyes at the back of your head.” 

But these, as it happened, Alice had not got; 
so she contented herself with turning round, 
looking at the shelves as she came to them. 

The shop seemed to be full of all manner 
of curious things — but the oddest part of it 
all was that, whenever she looked hard at any 
shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, 
that particular shelf was always quite empty, 
though the others round it were crowded as full 
as they could hold. 


[ 84 ] 



IWKING GLASS 



“Things flow about so here!” she said at^yy* 
last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a 
minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright 
thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and 
sometimes like a work-box, and was always in T ^m\ 
the shelf next above the one she was looking at. Xjlj 
“And this one is the most provoking of all — 
but I’ll tell you what — ” she added, as a/ 


to the very top shelf of all. It’ll puzzle it to 
go through the ceiling, I expect!” 

But even this plan failed: the “thing” went 
through the ceiling as quietly as possible, as if 
it were quite used to it. 

“Are you a child or a teetotum?” the Sheep 
said, as she took up another pair of needles. 
“You’ll make me giddy soon, if you go on 
turning round like that.” She was now work- 
ing with fourteen pairs at once, and Alice 
couldn’t help looking at her in great astonish- 
ment. 

“How can she knit with so many?” the 
puzzled child thought to herself. “She gets 



THROUGH THE 

more and more like a porcupine every 
minute !” 

“Can you row?” the Sheep asked, handing 
her a pair of knitting-needles as she spoke. 

“Yes, a little — but not on land — and not 
with needles — ” Alice was beginning to say, 
when suddenly the needles turned into oars 
in her hands, and she found they were in a 
little boat, gliding along between banks; so 
there was nothing for it but to do her best. 

“Feather!” cried the Sheep, as she took up 
another pair of needles. 

This didn’t sound like a remark that needed 
any answer; so Alice said nothing, but pulled 
away. There was something very queer about 
the water, she thought, as every now and then 
the oars got fast in it and would hardly come 
out again. 

“Feather! Feather!” the Sheep cried again, 
taking more needles. “You’ll be catching a 
crab directly.” 

“A dear little crab!” thought Alice. “I 
should like that.” 




[ 86 ] 




IMING GLASS 

‘‘Didn’t you hear me say ‘Feather’?” the 
Sheep cried angrily, taking up quite a bunch 
of needles. 

“Indeed I did,” said Alice; “you’ve said it 
very often — and very loud. Please, where are 
the crabs?” 

“In the water, of course!” said the Sheep, 
sticking some of the needles into her hair, as 
her hands were full. “Feather, I say!” 

“ Why do you say ‘Feather’ so often?” Alice 
asked at last, rather vexed. “I’m not a 
bird!” 

“You are,” said the Sheep; “you’re a little 
goose.” 

This offended Alice a little, so there was no 
more conversation for a minute or two, while 
the boat glided gently on, sometimes among 
beds of weeds (which made the oars stick fast 
in the water, worse than ever), and sometimes 
under trees, but always with the same tall river- 
banks frowning over their heads. 

“Oh, please! There are some scented 
rushes!” Alice cried in a sudden transport 
[ 87 ] 




THROUGH THE 


of delight. “There really are — and such 
beauties !” 

“You needn’t say ‘please’ to me about ’em,” 
the Sheep said, without looking up from her 
knitting; “I didn’t put ’em there, and I’m not 
going to take ’em away.” 

“No, but I meant — please, may we wait and 
pick some?” Alice pleaded. “If you don’t mind 
stopping the boat for a minute.” 

“How am I to stop it?” said the Sheep. “If 
you leave off rowing, it’ll stop of itself.” 

So the boat was left to drift down the stream 
as it would, till it glided gently in among the 
waving rushes. And then the little sleeves were 
carefully rolled up, and the little arms were 
plunged in elbow-deep, to get hold of the rushes 
a good long way down before breaking them 
off — and for a while Alice forgot all about the 
Sheep and the knitting, as she bent over the 
side of the boat, with just the ends of her 
tangled hair dipping into the water — while 
with bright, eager eyes she caught at one bunch 
after another of the darling scented rushes. 

[ 88 ] 

12 > 



Wqz little arms; toere 
plungeb In elboto beep. 



Page 88 













































































































































































































































































































































































































































1 


















































































































19PKII10 GLASS 

“I only hope the boat won’t topple over!” 
she said to herself. “Oh, what a lovely one! 
Only I couldn’t quite reach it.” And it cer- 
tainly did seem a little provoking (“almost as 
if it happened on purpose,” she thought) that, 
though she managed to pick plenty of beautiful 
rushes as the boat glided by, there was always 
a more lovely one that she couldn’t reach. 

“The prettiest are always further!” she said 
at last, with a sigh at the obstinacy of the 
rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed 
cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she 
scrambled back into her place and began to 
arrange her new-found treasures. 

What mattered it to her just then that the 
rushes had begun to fade and to lose all their 
scent and beauty from the very moment that 
she picked them? Even real scented rushes, 
you know, last only a very little while — and 
these, being dream-rushes, melted away almost 
like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet — 
but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so 
many other curious things to think about. 

[ 89 ] 







They hadn’t gone much farther before the 
blade of one of the oars got fast in the water 
and wouldn't come out again (so Alice ex- 
plained it afterwards), and the consequence 
was that the handle of it caught her under the 
chin, and, in spite of a series of little shrieks of 
“Oh, oh, oh!” from poor Alice, it swept her 
straight off the seat and down among the heap 
of rushes. 

However, she wasn’t a bit hurt, and was soon 
up again. The Sheep went on with her knitting 
all the while, just as if nothing had happened. 
“That was a nice crab you caught!” she re- 
marked as Alice got back into her place, very 
much relieved to find herself still in the boat. 

“Was it? I didn’t see it,” said Alice, peep- 
ing cautiously over the side of the boat into 
the dark water. “I wish it hadn’t let go — I 
should so like a little crab to take home with 
me!” But the Sheep only laughed scornfully 
and went on with her knitting. 

“Are there many crabs here?” said Alice. 

“Crabs and all sorts of things,” said the 
[ 90 ] 




K 


\ 



&ltce to) as£ fitting m tt)e 
great arnwfjatr, fjalf asleep. 


Page 2 





s" 


fortable sort of age. Now if you’d asked my 
advice, I’d have said, ‘Leave off at seven,’ but 
it’s too late now.” 

“I never ask advice about growing,” Alice 
said indignantly. 

“Too proud?” the other inquired. 

Alice felt even more indignant at this sug- 
gestion. “I mean,” she said, “that one can’t 
help growing older.” 

“One can’t, perhaps,” said Humpty 
Dumpty; “but two can. With proper assist- 
ance, you might have left off at seven.” 

“What a beautiful belt you’ve got on!” Alice 
suddenly remarked. (They had had quite 
enough of the subject of age, she thought, and 
if they really were to take turns in choosing 
subjects, it was her turn now.) “At least,” 
she corrected herself on second thoughts, “a 
beautiful cravat, I should have said — no, a 
belt, I mean — I beg your pardon!” she added 
in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thor- 
oughly offended, and she began to wish she 
hadn’t chosen that subject. “If only I knew,” 



as® 

THRPUGH THE 





she thought to herself, “which was neck and 
which was waist!” 

Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very 
angry, though he said nothing for a minute or 
two. When he did speak again, it was in a 
deep growl. 

“It is a — most — provoking — thing,” he said 
at last, “when a person doesn’t know a cravat 
from a belt!” 

“I know it’s very ignorant of me,” Alice 
said in so humble a tone that Humpty 
Dumpty relented. 

“It’s a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as 
you say. It’s a present from the White King 
and Queen. There now!” 

“Is it really?” said Alice, quite pleased to 
find that she had chosen a good subject after all. 

“They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty con- 
tinued thoughtfully, as he crossed one knee 
over the other and clasped his hands round it — 
“they gave it me for an un-birthday present.” 

“I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a 
puzzled air. 





[ 100 ] 





19PK1HG GLASS 

I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. 

I mean, what is an un-birthday present?”' 

“A present given when it isn’t your birth- 
day, of course.” < ^oi) 

Alice considered a little. “I like birthday 
presents best,” she said at last. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking 
about!” cried Humpty Dumpty. “How many /, 
days are there in a year?” / y 

“Three hundred and sixty-five,” said Alice. 

“And how many birthdays have you?” 

“One.” 

“And if you take one from three hundred 
and sixty-five, what remains?” 

“Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.” 

Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. “I’d 
rather see that done on paper,” he said. 

Alice couldn’t help smiling as she took out 

her memorandum-book and worked the sum 

for him: „ 

365 

1 

364 

[ 101 ] 





Humpty Dumpty took the book and looked 
at it carefully. “That seems to be done 
Fm right — ” he began. 

“You’re holding it upside down!” Alice in- 
^errupted. 

“To be sure I was!” Humpty Dumpty said 
gaily, as she turned it round for him. “I 
thought it looked a little queer. As I was 
saying, that seems to be done right — 
though I haven’t time to look it over 
thoroughly just now — and that shows that 
there are three hundred and sixty-four 
days when you might get un-birtliday pres- 
ents ” 

“Certainly,” said Alice. 

“And only one for birthday presents, you 
know. There’s glory for you!” 

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” 
Alice said. 

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 
“Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant 
‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for 
you!’ ” 







[ 102 ] 




IWK1NG GLASS 


“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock- 
down argument,’ ” Alice objected. 

“When I use- a word,” Humpty Dumpty 
said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just 
what I choose it to mean — neither more nor 
less.” 

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you 
can make words mean so many different 
things.” 

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, 
“which is to be master, that’s all.” 

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything ; 
so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began 
again. “They’ve a temper, some of them — 
particularly verbs; they’re the proudest — ad- 
jectives you can do anything with, but not 
verbs; however, I can manage the whole lot 
of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I 
say!” 

“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice, 
“what that means?” 

“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said 
Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 



THRPUGH THE 


“I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had 
enough of that subject, and it would be just as 
well if you’d mention what you mean to do 
next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here 
all the rest of your life.” 

“That’s a great deal to make one word 
mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone. 

“When I make a word do a lot of work like 
that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it 
extra.” 

“Oh!” said Alice. She was too much puzzled 
to make any other remark. 

“Ah, you should see ’em come round me of a 
Saturday night,” Humpty Dumpty went on, 
wagging his head gravely from side to side, 
“for to get their wages, you know.” 

(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid 
them with, and so you see I can’t tell you.) 

“You seem very clever at explaining words, 
Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me 
the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabber- 
wocky’?” 

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I 
[ 104 ] 


OTO GLASS 

can explain all the poems that ever were in- 
vented — and a good many that haven’t been 
invented just yet.” 

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated 
the first verse: 

“ * Twas brillig , and the slithy toves 
Did gyre cmd gimble in the wabe: 

All mimsy were the boro gone s , 

And the mome raths outgrabe” 

“That’s enough to begin with,” Humpty 
Dumpty interrupted; “there are plenty of hard 
words there. ' Brillig 3 means four o’clock in 
the afternoon — the time when you begin broil- 
ing things for dinner.” 

“That’ll do very well,” said Alice; “and 

( siithy 3 r 

“Well, e slithy 3 means ‘lithe and slimy.’ 
‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like 
a portmanteau — there are two meanings 
packed up into one word.” 

“I see it now,” Alice remarked thoughtfully; 
“and what are ‘ toves 3 V* 






THROUGH THE 


“Well, ‘toves’ are something like badgers, 
they’re something like lizards, and they’re 
something like corkscrews.” 

“They must be very curious-looking 
creatures.” 

“They are that,” said Humpty Dumpty; 
“also they make their nests under sun-dials; 
also they live on cheese.” 

“And what’s to ‘gyre? and to ‘gimble’V 9 

“To * gyre 9 is to go round and round like a 
gyroscope. To ' gimble ’ is to make holes like 
a gimlet.” 

“And ‘the wabe J is the grass-plot round a 
sun-dial, I suppose?” said Alice, surprised at 
her own ingenuity. 

“Of course it is. It’s called ‘wabe? you 
know, because it goes a long way before it and 
a long way behind it ” 

“And a long way beyond it on each side,” 
Alice added. 

“Exactly so. Well, then, ‘mimsy’ is ‘flimsy 
and miserable’ (there’s another portmanteau 
for you) . And a ‘borogove* is a thin, shabby- 
[ 106 ] 






iWKING GLASS 


looking bird with its feathers sticking out all 
round — something like a live mop.” 

“And then e mome raths'V’ said Alice. “I’m 
afraid I’m giving you a great deal of trouble.” 
“Well, a 'rath 3 is a sort of green pig; but 
I think it’s short 
meaning that they’d lost 


‘mome 3 I’m not certain about, 

,AY 


for ‘from home’ 

Ji Jfeil their way, you know.” 

f “And what does ‘outgrabe’ mean?” 

“Well, ‘outgribing 3 is something between 
bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze 
in the middle; however, you’ll hear it done, 
maybe, down in the wood yonder, and when 
you’ve once heard it you’ll be quite content. 
Who’s been repeating all that hard stuff to 
you?” 

“I read it in a book,” said Alice. “But I 
had some poetry repeated to me much easier 
than that by — Tweedledee, I think it was.” 

“As to poetry, you know,” said Humpty 
Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, 
“I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it 
comes to that ” 



[ 107 ] 




THROUGH THE 


“Oh, it needn’t come to that!” Alice hastily 
said, hoping to keep him from beginning. 

“The piece I’m going to repeat,” he went 
on without noticing her remark, “was written 
entirely for your amusement.” 

Alice felt that in that case she really ought 
to listen to it, so she sat down and said “Thank 
you” rather sadly. 

“In winter , when the fields are white , 

I sing this song for your delight 


only I don’t sing it,” he added as an explana- 
tion. 

“I see you don’t,” said Alice. 

“If you can see whether I’m singing or not, 
you’ve sharper eyes than most,” Humpty 
Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent. 

“In spring , when woods are getting green , 
HI try and tell you what I mean:” 


'Thank you very much,” said Alice. 

“In summer, when the days are long. 
Perhaps you'll understand the song: 


“In autumn , when the leaves are brown , 

Take pen and vnk, and write it down ." 

“I will, if I can remember it so long,” said 
Alice. 

“You needn’t go on making remarks like 
that,” Humpty Dumpty said; “they’re not 
sensible and they put me out.” 

“7 sent a message to the fish: 

I told them ‘ This is what I wish * 

“ The little fishes of the sea. 

They sent an answer back to me. 

“The little fishes 9 answer was 
'We cannot do it. Sir , because * ” 

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” said 
Alice. 

“It gets easier further on,” Humpty 
Dumpty replied. 

“1 sent to them again to say 
Tt will be better to obey. 9 

“The fishes answered , with a grin , 

'Why, what a temper you are in! 9 


THROUGH THE 

“I told them once , I told them twice: 

They would not listen to advice. 

‘7 took a kettle large and new , 

Fit for the deed I had to do. 

“My heart went hop , my heart went thump: 

I filled the kettle at the pump. 

“Then some one came to me and said 
( The little fishes are in bed. 9 

“I said to him, I said it plain, 

‘ Then you must wake them up again 9 

“I said it very loud and clear: 

I went and shouted in his ear. 99 

Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to 
a scream as he repeated this verse, and Alice 
thought, with a shudder, “I wouldn’t have been 
the messenger for anything!” 

“But he was very stiff and proud: 

He said ‘ You needn 9 t shout so loud! 9 




“And he was very proud and stiff: 

He said 7 9 d go and wake them, if * 


OTNG GLASS 

“/ took a corkscrew from the shelf: 

I went to wake them up myself. 

“ And when 1 found the door was locked , 

I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked. 

“ And when I found the door was shut , 

I tried to turn the handle t hut ” 

There was a long pause. 

“Is that all?” Alice timidly asked. 

“That’s all,” said Humpty Dumpty. 
“Good-bye.” 

This was rather sudden, Alice thought; but 
after such a very strong hint that she ought to 
be going, she felt that it would hardly be civil 
to stay. So she got up and held out her hand. 
“Good-bye till we meet again!” she said as 
cheerfully as she could. 

“I shouldn’t know you again if we did meet,” 
Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented 
tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; 
“you’re so exactly like other people.” 

“The face is what one goes by, generally,” 
Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone. 

[in] 






THROUGH THE 


“That’s just what I complain of,” said 
Humpty Dumpty. “Your face is the same as 
everybody has — the two eyes, so — ” (marking 
their places in the air with his thumb) “nose 
in the middle, mouth under. It’s always the 
same. Now if you had the two eyes on the 
same side of the nose, for instance, or the mouth 
at the top, that would be some help.” 

“It wouldn’t look nice,” Alice objected. But 
Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and said, 
“Wait till you’ve tried.” 

Alice waited a minute to see if he would 
speak again, but as he never opened his eyes 
or took any further notice of her, she said 
“Good-bye!” once more, and getting no answer 
to this, she quietly walked away; but she 
couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, 
“Of all the unsatisfactory — ” (she repeated 
this aloud, as it was a great comfort to have 
such a long word to say) “of all the unsatis- 
factory people I ever met — ” She never fin- 
ished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy 
crash shook the forest from end to end. 

[ 112 ] 



f»R3! 

u/v* **• \/ u/i* 

IWKINGGLASS 






THE LION AND THE UNICORN 

T HE next moment soldiers came running 
through the wood, at first in twos and 
threes, then ten or twenty together, 
and at last in such crowds that they seemed to / ' 
fill the whole forest. Alice got behind a tree, 
for fear of being run over, and watched them 
go by. 

She thought that in all her life she had never 
seen soldiers so uncertain on their feet; they 
were always tripping over something or other, 
and whenever one went down, several more 
always fell over him, so that the ground was 
soon covered with little heaps of men. 

Then came the horses. Having four feet, 
these managed rather better than the foot- 
soldiers; hut even they stumbled now and then; 
and it seemed to be a regular rule that when- 
ever a horse stumbled the rider fell off in- 
[ 113 ] 





moment, and Alice was very glad to get out of 
the wood into an open place, where she found 
the White King seated on the ground busily 
writing in his memorandum-book. 

“I’ve sent them all ! 5J the King cried in a 
tone of delight on seeing Alice. “Did you hap- 
pen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came 
through the wood?” 

“Yes, I did,” said Alice; “several thousand, 
I should think.” 

“Four thousand two hundred and seven, 
that’s the exact number,” the King said, refer- 
ring to his book. “I couldn’t send all the 
horses, you know, because two of them are 
wanted in the game. And I haven’t sent the 
two Messengers, either. They’re both gone to 
the town. Just look along the road and tell me 
if you can see either of them.” 

“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice. 

“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King re- 
marked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see 
Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, 




MING GLASS 

it’s as much as I can do to see real people by 
this light!” 

All this was lost on Alice, who was still look- 
ing intently along the road, shading her eyes 
with one hand. “I see somebody now!” she 
exclaimed at last. “But he’s coming very 
slowly, and what curious attitudes he goes r 
into!” (For the Messenger kept skipping up 
and down and wriggling like an eel as he came 
along, with his great hands spread out like 
fans on each side.) 

“Not at all,” said the King. “He’s an 
Anglo-Saxon Messenger, and those are Anglo- 
Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he’s 
happy. His name is Haigha.” (He pro- 
nounced it so as to rhyme with “mayor.”) 

“I love my love with an H,” Alice couldn’t 
help beginning, “because he is Happy. I hate 
him with an H, because he is Hideous. I fed 
him with — with — with Ham-sandwiches and 
Hay. His name is Haigha, and he lives ” 

“He lives on the Hill,” the King remarked 
simply, without the least idea that he was join- 
[ 115 ] 




THR9U0H THE 



; in g in the game, while Alice was still hesitating 
for the name of a town beginning with H. 
[ “The other Messenger’s called Hatta. I must 
have two , you know — to come and go. One to 
come and one to go.” 

“I beg your pardon?” said Alice. 

“It isn’t respectable to beg,” said the King. 
T only meant that I didn’t understand,” 
said Alice. “Why one to come and one to go?” 

“Don’t I tell you?” the King repeated im- 
patiently. “I must have two — to fetch and 
carry. One to fetch and one to carry.” 

At this moment the Messenger arrived. He 
was far too much out of breath to 
say a word, and could only wave 
his hands about and make the 
most fearful faces at the poor 
King. 

“This young lady loves you 
with an H,” the King said, intro- 
ducing Alice in the hope of turn- 
ing off the Messenger’s attention 
from himself, but it was of no use 
[ 116 ] 



— the Anglo-Saxon attitudes only got more 
extraordinary every moment, while the great 
eyes rolled wildly from side to side. 

“You alarm me!” said the King. “I feel 
faint. Give me a ham sandwich!” 

On which the Messenger, to Alice’s great 
amusement, opened a bag that hung round his 
neck and handed a sandwich to the King, who 
devoured it greedily. 

“Another sandwich!” said the King. 

“There’s nothing but hay left now,” the 
Messenger said, peeping into the bag. 

“Hay, then,” the King murmured in a faint 
whisper. 

Alice was glad to see that it revived him a 
good deal. “There’s nothing like eating hay 
when you’re faint,” he remarked to her, as he 
munched away. 

“I should think throwing cold water over 
you would be better,” Alice suggested; “or 
some sal-volatile.” 

“I didn’t say there was nothing better” the 
King replied. “I said there was nothing like 
it.” Which Alice did not venture to deny. 



«» 

THR9U0H THE 



“Who did you pass on the road?” the King 
went on, holding out his hand to the Messenger 
for some more hay. 

“Nobody,” said the Messenger. 

“Quite right,” said the King; “this young 


So of course Nobody walks 


lady saw him, too. 
slower than you.” 

|a\ “I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sul- 
len tone. “I’m sure nobody walks much faster 
than I do!” 

“He can’t do that,” said the King, “or else 
he’d have been here first. However, now you’ve 
got your breath you may tell us what’s hap- 
pened in the town.” 

“I’ll whisper it,” said the Messenger, putting 
his hands to his mouth iii the shape of a trumpet 
and stooping so as to get close to the King’s 
ear. Alice was sorry for this, as she wanted to 
hear the news, too. However, instead of whis- 
pering he simply shouted at the top of his voice, 
“They’re at it again!” 

“Do you call that a whisper?” cried the poor 
King, jumping up and shaking himself. “If 
„ [US] 


m 








you do such a thing again I’ll have you but- 
tered ! It went through and through my head 
like an earthquake!” 

“It would have to be a very tiny earth- 
quake!” thought Alice. “Who are at it again?” 
she ventured to ask. 

“Why, the Lion and the Unicorn, of 
course,” said the King. 

“Fighting for the crown?” 

“Yes, to be sure,” said the King; “and the 
best of the joke is, that it’s my crown all the 
while! Let’s run and see them.” And they 
trotted off, Alice repeating to herself as she 
ran the words of the old song : 

“The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the 
crown: 

The Lion heat the Unicorn all round the town. 

Some gave them white bread , some gave them brown: 

Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out 
of town ” 

“Does — the one — that wins — get the crown?” 
she asked as well as she could, for the run was 
putting her quite out of breath. 

[ 119 ] 

& 









THROUGH THE 


“Dear me, no!” said the King. “ 
idea!” 

“Would you — be good enough- 
panted out, after running a little further, “to^ 
stop 


a minute — just to get — one’s breath 
a gain? ” uj'jJ 

“I’m good enough,” the King said, “only > Jk^ \ 
I’m not strong enough. You see, a minute goes 




by so fearfully quick. You might as well try 
to stop a Bandersnatch!” 

Alice had no more breath for talking, so 
they trotted on in silence till they came into 
sight of a great crowd, in the middle of which 
the Lion and Unicorn were 
fighting. They were in such a 
cloud of dust that at first Alice 
could not make out which was 
which; but she soon managed 
to distinguish the Unicorn by 
his horn. 

They placed themselves close 
to where Hatta, the other Mes- 
senger, was standing watching 


[ 120 ] 



IMING GLASS 

the fight, with a cup of tea in one hand and a 
piece of bread-and-butter in the other. 

“He’s only just out of prison, and he hadn’t 
finished his tea when he was sent in,” Haigha 
whispered to Alice; “and they only give them 
oyster-shells in there, so you see he’s very 
hungry and thirsty. How are you, dear 
child?” he went on, putting his arm affection- 
ately round Hatta’s neck. 

Hatta looked round and nodded, and went 
on with his bread-and-butter. 

“Were you happy in prison, dear child?” 
said Haigha. 

Hatta looked round once more, and this 
time a tear or two trickled down his cheek ; but 
not a word would he say. 

“Speak, can’t you!” Haigha cried impa- 
tiently. But Hatta only munched away and 
drank some more tea. 

“Speak, won’t you!” cried the King. “How 
are they getting on with the fight?” 

Hatta made a desperate effort, and swal- 
lowed a large piece of bread-and-butter. 




THROUGH THE 

“They’re getting on very well,” he said in a 
choking voice; “each of them has been down 
about eighty-seven times.” 

“Then I suppose they’ll soon bring the white 
bread and the brown?” Alice ventured to re- 
mark. 

“It’s waiting for ’em now,” said Hatta; “this 
is a bit of it as I’m eating.” 

There was a pause in the fight just then, 
and the Lion and the Unicorn sat down, pant- 
ing, while the King called out, “Ten minutes 
allowed for refreshments!” Haigha and Hatta 
set to work at once, carrying round trays of 
white and brown bread. Alice took a piece to 
taste, but it was very dry. 

“I don’t think they’ll fight any more to- 
day,” the King said to Hatta; “go and order 
the drums to begin.” And Hatta went bound- 
ing away like a grasshopper. 

For a minute or two Alice stood silent, 
watching him. Suddenly she brightened up. 
“Look, look!” she cried, pointing eagerly. 
“There’s the White Queen running across the 
[ 122 ] 






MHO GLASS 

country ! She came flying out of the wood over 
yonder. How fast those Queens can run!” 

“There’s some enemy after her, no doubt,” 
the King said, without even looking round. 
“That wood’s full of them.” 

“But aren’t you going to run and help her?” 
Alice asked, very much surprised at his taking 
it so quietly. 

“No use, no use!” said the King. “She runs 
so fearfully quick. You might as well try to 
catch a Bandersnatch! But I’ll make a memo- 
randum about her, if you like. She’s a dear, 
good creature,” he repeated softly to himself as 
he opened his memorandum-book. “Do you 
spell ‘creature’ with a double ‘e’?” 

At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by 
them with his hands in his pockets. “I had 
the best of it this time,” he said to the King, 
just glancing at him as he passed. 

“A little — a little,” the King replied, rather 
nervously. “You shouldn’t have run him 
through with your horn, you know.” 

It didn’t hurt him,” the Unicorn said care- 








THRPUGH THE 


lessly, and he was going on, when his eye hap- 
pened to fall upon Alice. He turned round 
instantly, and stood for some time looking at 
her with an air of the deepest disgust. 

“What — is — this?” he said at last. 

“This is a child 1” Haigha replied eagerly, 
coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and 
spreading out both his hands towards her in an 
Anglo-Saxon attitude. “We only found it 
to-day. It’s as large as life, and twice as 
natural!” 

“I always thought they were fabulous mon- 
sters!” said the Unicorn. “Is it alive?” 

“It can talk,” said Haigha solemnly. 

The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice and 
said, “Talk, child.” 

Alice could not help her lips curling up into 
a smile as she began: “Do you know, I always 
thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? 
I never saw one alive before!” 

“Well, now that we have seen each other,” 
said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll 
believe in you. Is that a bargain?” 

[ 124 ] 

■-%h ■mzz. 


MO GLASS 




“Yes, if you like,” said Alice. 

^ “Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!” 
^ the Unicorn went on, turning from her to 
the King. “None of your brown bread for 
:me!” 

f\V “Certainly — certainly!” the King muttered, 

and beckoned to Haigha. “Open the bag!” he 
Y/\ whispered. “Quick ! N ot that one — that’s full 
of hay!” 

Haigha took a large cake out of the bag 
and gave it to Alice to hold while he got out 
a dish and carving-knife. How they all came 
out of it Alice couldn’t guess. It was just like 
a conjuring-trick, she thought. 

The Lion had joined them while this was 
going on. He looked very tired and sleepy, 
and his eyes were half shut. “What’s this!” he 
said, blinking lazily at Alice, and speaking in 
a deep, hollow tone that sounded like the toll- 
ing of a great bell. 

“Ah, what is it, now?” the Unicorn cried 
eagerly. “You’ll never guess! I couldn’t.” 
The Lion looked at Alice wearily. “Are you 
[ 125 ] 




THROUGH THE 



. i 


animal — or vegetable — or mineral ?” he said, 
yawning at every other word. 

“It’s a fabulous monster!” the Unicorn cried 
out before Alice could reply. 

“Then hand round the plum-cake, Monster,” 
the Lion said, lying down and putting his chin 
on his paws. “And sit down, both of you” (to 
the King and the Unicorn) ; “fair play with 
the cake, you know!” 

The King was evidently very uncomfortable 
at having to sit down between the two great 
creatures ; but there was no other place for him. 

“What a fight we might have for the crown 
now!” the Unicorn said, looking slyly up at 
the crown, which the poor King was nearly 
shaking off his head, he trembled so much. 

“I should win easy,” said the Lion. 

“I’m not so sure of that,” said the Unicorn. 

“Why, I beat you all round the town, you 
chicken!” the Lion replied angrily, half getting 
up as he spoke. 

Here the King interrupted to prevent the 
quarrel going on; he was very nervous, and his 
[ 126 ] 




$Utce steateb f)er£elf tottf) tfje 
great Inert) on tier knees. 


Page 127 




























































































































































































































































































































































EMING GLASS 

voice quite quivered. “All round the town?” 
he said. “That’s a good long way. Did you 
go by the old bridge or the market-place? You 
get the best view by the old bridge.” 

“I’m sure I don’t know,” the Lion growled 
out as he lay down again. “There was too 
much dust to see anything. What a time the 
Monster is cutting up that cake!” 

Alice had seated herself on the bank of a ( 
little brook, with the great dish on her knees, 
and was sawing away diligently with the knife. 
“It’s very provoking!” she said in reply to 
the Lion (she was getting quite used to being 
called “the Monster”) . “I’ve cut several slices 
already, but they always join on again!” 

“You don’t know how to manage Looking- 
glass cakes,” the Unicorn remarked. “Hand it 
round first and cut it afterwards.” 

This sounded nonsense, but Alice very obedi- 
ently got up and carried the dish round, and 
the cake divided itself into three pieces as she 
did so. “Now cut it up,” said the Lion, as 
she returned to her place with the empty dish. 





THR9U0H THE 


^ jl say, this isn’t fair!” cried the Unicorn, 
<>;as Alice sat with the knife in her hand, very 
much puzzled how to begin. “The Monster has 
? given the Lion twice as much as me!” 

“She’s kept none for herself, anyhow,” said 
the Lion. “Do you like plum-cake, Monster?” 
!/} But before Alice could answer him the 
drums began. 

Where the noise came from she couldn’t 
make out; the air seemed full of it, and it rang 
through and through her head till she felt quite 
deafened. She started to her feet and sprang 
across the little brook in her terror. 


and had just time to see the Lion and the Uni- 
corn rise to their feet, with angry looks at being 
interrupted in their feast, before she dropped 
to her knees and put her hands over her ears, 
vainly trying to shut out the dreadful uproar. 

“If that doesn’t ‘drum them out of town,’ ” 
she thought to herself, “nothing ever will!” 


ITS MY OWN INVENTION 


A FTER a while the noise seemed grad- 
ually to die away, till all was dead 
silence, and Alice lifted up her head 
in some alarm. There was no one to be seen, 
and her first thought was that she must have 
been dreaming about the Lion and the Unicorn 
and those queer Anglo-Saxon Messengers. 
However, there was the great dish still lying 
at her feet on which she had tried to cut the 
plum-cake. “So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,” 
she said to herself, “unless — unless we’re all 
part of the same dream. Only I do hope it’s 
my dream and not the Red King’s! I don’t 
like belonging to another person’s dream,” she 
went on in a rather complaining tone. “I’ve a 
great mind to go and wake him and see what 
happens !” 

At this moment her thoughts were inter- 



THROUGH THE 



s 


rupted by a loud shouting of “ Ahoy! Ahoy! 
Check !” and a Knight, dressed in crimson 
armor, came galloping down upon her, bran- 
dishing a great club. Just as he reached her 
the horse stopped suddenly. “You’re my 
prisoner!” the Knight cried as he tumbled off 
his horse. 

Startled as she was, Alice was more fright- 
ened for him than for herself at the moment, 
and watched him with some anxiety as he 
mounted again. As soon as he was comfort- 
ably in the saddle, he began once more, 
“You’re my — ” but here another voice 
broke in, “Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and Alice 
looked round in some surprise for the new 
enemy. 

This time it was a White Knight. He drew 
up at Alice’s side, and tumbled off his horse 
just as the Red Knight had done; then he got 
on again, and the two Knights sat and looked 
at each other for some time without speaking. 
Alice looked from one to the other in some be- 
wilderment. 





IWKING GLASS 


“She’s my prisoner, you know!” the Red, 
Knight said at last. 

“Yes, but then I came and rescued her!” 
the White Knight replied. 

“Well, we must fight for her, then,” said the 
Red Knight, as he took up his helmet (which 
hung from the saddle, and was something the 
shape of a horse’s head) and put it on. , 

“You will observe the Rules of Battle, of s 
course?” the White Knight remarked, putting 
on his helmet, too. 

“I always do,” said the Red Knight, and 
they began banging away at each other with 
such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be out 
of the way of the blows. 

“I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle 


are,” she said to herself, as she watched the ; ^ 
fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-w 
place. “One Rule seems to be that if one ^ 
Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his 
horse; and if he misses he tumbles off himself;^ 
and another Rule seems to be that they hold' / 
their clubs with their arms, as if they were, 
Punch and Judy. What a noise they make ^ 
when they tumble! Just like a whole set of 
fire-irons falling into the fender! And how 
quiet the horses are! They let them get or 
and off them just as if they were tables!” 

Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not 
noticed, seemed to be that they always fell on 
their heads; and the battle ended with their 
both falling off in this way, side by side. When 
they got up again they shook hands, and then 
the Red Knight mounted and galloped off. 

“It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it?” said 
the White Knight as he came up panting. 

“I don’t know,” Alice said doubtfully. “I 
don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner. I want to 
be a Queen.” 


[ 132 ] 



“Jtoto! Jtoto!” crieb t!je 
d^ueen. “Jfasiter! Jf aster!” 


Page 32 








INKING GLASS 




“So you will when you’ve crossed the next 
brook,” said the White Knight. “I’ll see you 
safe to the end of the wood — and then I must 
go back, you know. That’s the end of my 
move.” 

“Thank you very much,” said Alice. “May 
I help you off with your helmet?” It was evi- 
dently more than he could manage by himself; 
however, she managed to shake him out of it at 
last. 

“Now one can breathe more easily,” said the 
Knight, putting back his shaggy hair with both 
hands and turning his gentle face and large 
mild eyes to Alice. She thought she had never 
seen such a strange-looking soldier in all her 
life. 

He was dressed in tin armor, which seemed 
to fit him very badly, and he had a queer- 
shaped little deal box fastened across his shoul- 
ders, upside-down, and with the lid hanging 
open. Alice looked at it with great curiosity. 

“I see you’re admiring my little box,” the 
Knight said in a friendly tone. “It’s my own 
[ 133 ] 





m 


mo-.. 

THROUGH THE 




invention — to keep clothes and sandwiches in. 

You see I carry it upside-down so that the rain 
can’t get in.” 

“But the things can get out ” Alice gently 
remarked. “Do you know the lid’s open?” 

“I didn’t know it,” the Knight said, a shade 

lA 


IQ of vexation passing over his face. “Then all the 


k things must have fallen out! And the box is 


no use without them.” He unfastened it as he 
spoke, and was just going to throw it into the 
bushes when a sudden thought seemed to 
strike him and he hung it carefully on a tree. 
“Can you guess why I did that?” he said to 
Alice. 

Alice shook her head. 

“In hopes some bees may make a nest in it — 1 
then I should get the honey.” 

“But you’ve got a bee-hive — or something 
like one — fastened to the saddle,” said Alice. 

“Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,” the Knight 
said in a discontented tone; “one of the best 
kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. 
And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose 
[t34] 


the mice keep the bees out — or the bees keep 
^ the mice out, I don’t know which.” 

“I was wondering what the mouse-trap was 
for,” said Alice. “It isn’t very likely there 
would be any mice on the horse’s back.” 

^y\ “Not very likely, perhaps,” said the Knight ; 

. “but if they do come, I don’t choose to have 
Cithern running all about.” 

“You see,” he went on after a pause, “it’s as 
well to be provided for everything . That’s the 
reason the horse has all those anklets round his 
feet.” 

“But what are they for?” Alice asked in a 
tone of great curiosity. 

“To guard against the bites of sharks,” the 
Knight replied. “It’s an invention of my own. 
And now help me on. I’ll go with you to the 
end of the wood. What’s that dish for?” 
“It’s meant for plum-cake,” said Alice. 
“We’d better take it with us,” the Knight 
said. “It’ll come in handy if we find any plum- 
cake. Help me to get it into this bag.” 

This took a long time to manage, though 






THRPUGH THE 


Alice held the bag open very carefully, because 
the Knight was so very awkward in putting in 
the dish; the first two or three times that he 
tried he fell in himself instead. “It’s rather a 
tight fit, you see,” he said, as they got it in at 
last; “there are so many candlesticks in the 
bag.” And he hung it to the saddle, which was 
already loaded with bunches of carrots and 
fire-irons and many other things. 

“I hope you’ve got your hair well fastened 
on?” he continued, as they set off. 

“Only in the usual way,” Alice said, smiling. 

“That’s hardly enough,” he said, anxiously. 
“You see the wind is so very strong here. It’s 
as strong as soup.” 

“Have you invented a plan for keeping the 
hair from being blown off?” Alice inquired. 

“Not yet,” said the Knight. “But I’ve got 
a plan for keeping it from falling off.” 

“I should like to hear it very much.” 

“First you take an upright stick,” said the 
Knight. “Then you make your hair creep up 
it, like a fruit-tree. Now, the reason hair falls 
- .. [ 136 ] 




MG GLASS 


off is because it hangs down — things never fall 


upwards , you know. It’s a plan of my owm 
invention. You may try it if you like.” 

It didn’t sound a comfortable plan, Alice 
thought, and for a few minutes she walked on 
in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now 
and then stopping to help the poor Knight, 
who certainly was not a good rider. 

Whenever the horse stopped (which it did 
very often) he fell off in front; and whenever 
it went on again (which it generally did rather 
suddenly) he fell off behind. Otherwise he 
kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit 
of now and then falling off sideways; and as 
he generally did this on the side on which Alice 
was walking, she soon found that it was the 
best plan not to walk quite close to the horse. 

“I’m afraid you’ve not had much practice in 
riding,” she ventured to say, as she was helping 
him up from his fifth tumble. 

The Knight looked very much surprised and 
a little offended at the remark. “What makes 
you say that?” he asked, as he scrambled back 
[ 137 ] 


9 



THRPUOH THE 


into the saddle, keeping hold of Alice’s hair 
with one hand to save himself from falling over 
on the other side. 

“Because people don’t fall off quite so often 
when they’ve had much practice.” 

“I’ve had plenty of practice,” the Knight 
said very gravely; “plenty of practice!” 
y Alice could think of nothing better to say 
,than “Indeed?” but she said it as heartily as 
she could. They went on a little way in silence 
after this, the Knight with his eyes shut, mut- 
tering to himself, and Alice watching anxiously 
for the next tumble. 

“The great art of riding,” the Knight sud- 
denly began in a loud voice, waving his right 
arm as he spoke, “is to keep — ” Here the sen- 
tence ended as suddenly as it had begun, as the 
Knight fell heavily on the top of his head 
exactly in the path where Alice was walking. 
She was quite frightened this time, and said in 
an anxious tone, as she picked him up, “I hope 
no bones are broken?” 

“None to speak of,” the Knight said, as if 
[ 138 ] 







MUG GLASS 


he didn’t mind breaking two or three of them. 
“The great art of riding, as I was saying, is — 
to keep your balance properly. Like this, you 
know ” 

He let go the bridle and stretched out both 
his arms to show Alice what he meant, and this 
time he fell flat on his back right under the 
horse’s feet. 

“Plenty of practice!” he went on repeating j 
all the time that Alice was getting him on his 
feet again. “Plenty of practice!” 

“It’s too ridiculous!” cried Alice, losing all 
her patience this time. “You ought to have a 
wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!” 

“Does that kind go smoothly?” the Knight 
asked in a tone of great interest, clasping his 
arms round the horse’s neck as he spoke, just in 
time to save himself from tumbling off again. 

“Much more smoothly than a live horse,” 
Alice said, with a little scream of laughter, in 
spite of all she could do to prevent it. 

“I’ll get one,” the Knight said thoughtfully 
to himself. “One or two — several.’ 

[ 139 ] 





THROUGH THE 



There was a short silence after this, and 
then the Knight went on again. “I’m a 
great hand at inventing things. Now, I 
daresay you noticed, the last time you picked 
me up, that I was looking rather thought- 
ful ?” 

“You were a little grave,” said Alice. 

“Well, just then I was inventing a new way 
of getting over a gate. Would you like to 
hear it?” 

“Very much indeed,” Alice said politely. 

“I’ll tell you how I came to think of it,” said 
the Knight. “You see, I said to myself, ‘The 
only difficulty is with the feet ; the head is high 
enough already.’ Now, first I put my head on 
the top of the gate — then the head’s high 
enough; then I stand on my head — then the 
feet are high enough, you see; then I’m over, 
you see.” 

“Yes, I suppose you’d be over when that 
was done,” Alice said thoughtfully; “but don’t 
you think it would be rather hard?” 

“I haven’t tried it yet,” the Knight said 







I9PKING GLASS 

gravely, “so I can’t tell for certain; but I’m 
afraid it would be a little hard.” 

He looked so vexed at the idea that Alice 
changed the subject hastily. “What a curious 
helmet you’ve got!” she said cheerfully. “Is 
that your invention, too?” 

The Knight looked down proudly at his hel- 
met, which hung from the saddle. “Yes,” he 
said; “but I’ve invented a better one than that 
— like a sugar-loaf. When I used to wear it, 
if I fell off the horse it always touched the 
ground directly. So I had a very little way 
to fall, you see. But there was the danger of 
falling into it, to be sure. That happened to 
me once — and the worst of it was, before I 
could get out again the other White Knight 
came and put it on. He thought it was his own 
helmet.” 

The Knight looked so solemn about it that 
Alice did not dare to laugh. “I’m afraid you 
must have hurt him,” she said in a trembling 
voice, “being on the top of his head.” 

“I had to kick him, of course,” the Knight 
[ 141 ] 






THROUGH THE 


said very seriously. “And then he took the 


helmet off again, but it took hours and hours 
to get me out. I was as fast as — as lightning, C/. 
you know.” 

“But that’s a different kind of fastness,’’ ^ 
Alice objected. 

The Knight shook his head. “It was all 
kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you!” he 
said. He raised his hands in some excitement ^ 
as he said this, and instantly rolled out of the 
saddle and fell headlong into a deep ditch. 

Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for 
him. She was rather startled by the fall, as for 
some time he had kept on very well, and she 
was afraid that he really was hurt this time. 
However, though she could see nothing but the 
soles of his feet, she was much relieved to hear 
that he was talking on in his usual tone. “All 
kinds of fastness,” he repeated; “but it was 
careless of him to put another man’s helmet on 
— with the man in it, too.” 

“How can you go on talking so quietly, head 
downwards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him ^ 
[ 142 ] 


bank. 

The Knight looked surprised at the question. 
“What does it matter where my body happens 
to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all 
the same. In fact, the more head-downwards 
I am, the more I keep inventing new things.’ 

“Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I/, 
ever did,” he went on after a pause, “was in- ; 
venting a new pudding during the meat-course.” 

“In time to have it cooked for the next 
course?” said Alice. “Well, that was quick 
work, certainly!” 

“Well, not the next course,” the Knight said 
in a slow, thoughtful tone; “no, certainly not 
the next course ” 

“Then it would have to be the next day. I 
suppose you wouldn’t have two pudding- 
courses in one dinner?” 

“Well, not the next day,” the Knight re- 
peated as before; “not the next day . In fact,” 
he went on, holding his head down, and his 
voice getting lower and lower, “I don’t believe 




a 


THR9UGH THE 





v ^ that pudding ever was cooked ! In fact, I don’t 
' Jj ^ believe that pudding ever will be cooked ! And 
^ was a ver ^ c ^ ever pudding to invent.” 
“What did you mean it to be made of?” 
Alice asked, hoping to cheer him up, for the 
poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it. 
' “It began with blotting-paper,” the Knight 
V v answered with a groan. 

1 j “That wouldn’t be very nice, I’m afraid ” 

“Not very nice alone” he interrupted, quite 
eagerly; “but you’ve no idea what a difference 
it makes mixing it with other things — such as 
gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must 
leave you.” They had just come to the end 
of the wood. 

Alice could only look puzzled ; she was think- 
ing of the pudding. 

“You are sad,” the Knight said in an 
anxious tone; “let me sing you a song to com- 
fort you.” 

“Is it very long?” Alice asked, for she had 
heard a good deal of poetry that day. 

"It’s long,” said the Knight, “but it’s very, 
[ 144 ] 

32 > 




K 



fjlWKIIIG GLASS 

very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing 
it — either it brings the tears into their eyes, or 
else ” 

“Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight 
had made a sudden pause. 

“Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name 
of the song is called f Haddocks' Eyes' " 

“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice 
said, trying to feel interested. 

“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight 
said, looking a little vexed. “That’s what the 
name is called . The name really is c The Aged 
Aged Man / " 

“Then I ought to have said, ‘That’s what 
the song is called’?” Alice corrected herself. 

“No, you oughtn’t; that’s quite another 
thing! The song is called ‘Ways and Means' ; 
but that’s only what it’s called , you know!” 

“Well, what is the song, then?” said Alice, 
who was by this time completely bewildered. 

“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. 
“The song really is ‘A-sitting On A Gate / and 
the tune’s my own invention.” 

[ 145 ] 





THROUGH THE 


So saying, he stopped his horse and let the 
reins fall on its neck; then, slowly beating time 
with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting 
up his gentle, foolish face, as if he enjoyed the 
music of his song, he began. 

Of all the strange things that Alice saw in 
her journey Through the Looking-Glass, this 
was the one that she always remembered most 
clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the 
whole scene back again as if it had been only 
yesterday — the mild blue eyes and kindly smile 
of the Knight, the setting sun gleaming 
through his hair and shining on his armour in a 
blaze of light that quite dazzled her, the horse 
quietly moving about, with the reins hanging 
loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet, 
and the black shadows of the forest behind — all 
this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand 
shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, 
watching the strange pair, and listening in a 
half -dream to the melancholy music of the 
song. 

“But the tune isn't his own invention,” she 
[ 146 ] 




PKING GLASS 


said to herself ; “it’s ‘I give thee all, I can no 
more / ” She stood and listened very atten- 
tively, but no tears came into her eyes. 


“I'll tell thee everything I can: 

There's little to relate . 

I saw an aged aged man 
A-sitting on a gate. 

4 Who are you , aged man ?' I said. 

4 And how is it you live V 
And his answer trickled through my head , 
Like water through a sieve. 

“He said T look for butterflies 
That sleep among the wheat: 

I make them into mutton-pies , 

And sell them in the street . 

1 sell them unto men ,' he said , 

4 Who sail on stormy seas; 

And that's the way I get my bread — 

A trifle , if you please.' 



“But 1 was thinking of a plan 
To dye one's whiskers green , 
And always use so large a fan 
That they could not be seen. 

[ 147 ] 





THR9UGH THE 


So, having no reply to give 
To what the old man said, 

1 cried ‘Come, tell me how you live !' 
And thumped him on the head. 

“ His accents mild took up the tale: 

He said T go my ways. 

And when I find a mount am-r ill, 

I set it in a blaze; 

And thence they make a stuff they call 
Rowland's Macassar-Oil — 

Yet twopence-half penny is all 
They give me for my toil' 

“ But 1 was thinking of a way 
To feed oneself on batter. 

And so go on from day to day 
Getting a little fatter. 

1 shook him well from side to side. 
Until his face was blue: 

* Come , tell me how you live,' I cried, 

* And what it is you do!' 

“He said T hunt for haddocks' eyes 
Among the heather bright, 

And work them into waistcoat-buttons 
In the silent nisrht. 


I®KIHG GLASS 

And these I do not sell for gold 
Or coin of silvery shine , 

But for a copper halfpenny , 

And that will purchase nine. 

“ ‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls , 
Or set limed twigs for crabs: 

I sometimes search the grassy knolls 
For wheels of Hansom-cabs. 

And that's the way' (he gave a wink) 
‘By which I get my wealth — 

And very gladly will I drink 
Your Honor's noble health .' 

“1 heard him then , for I had just 
Completed my design 
To keep the Menai bridge from rust 
By boiling it in wine. 

I thanked him much for telling me 
The way he got his wealth , 

But chiefly for his wish that he 
Might drink my noble health. 

“And now , if e'er by chance I put 
My fingers into glue , 

Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot 







THROUGH THE 


Or if I drop upon my toe 
A very heavy weight , 

1 weep , for it reminds me so 
Of that old man I used to know — 

Whose look was mild , whose speech was slow , 
Whose hair was whiter than the snow , 

Whose face was very like a crow , 

With eyes , like cinders , all aglow , 

TF/io seemed distracted with his woe , 

IFfto rocked, his body to and fro , 
muttered mumblingly and low. 

As if his mouth were full of dough, 

Who snorted like a buffalo 

That summer evening long ago, 

A-sitting on a gate." 


As the Knight sang the last words of the 
ballad, he gathered up the reins and turned 
his horse’s head along the road by which they 
had come. “You’ve only a few yards to go,” 
he said, “down the hill and over that little 
brook, and then you’ll be a Queen. But you’ll 
stay and see me off first?” he added as Alice 
turned with an eager look in the direction to 
which he pointed. “I sha’n’t be long. You’ll 
* [ 150 ] 




IMINGOLASS 


wait and wave your handkerchief when I get 
to that turn in the road ! I think it’ll encourage 
me, you see.” 

“Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice; “and thank 
you very much for coming so far — and for the 
song. I liked it very much.” 

“I hope so,” the Knight said doubtfully; 
“but you didn’t cry so much as I thought you 
would.” 

So they shook hands, and then the Knight 
rode slowly away into the forest. “It won’t 
take long to see him off , I expect,” Alice said 
to herself as she stood watching him. “There 
he goes! Right on his head as 
usual ! However, he gets on 
again pretty easily; that comes 
of having so many things hung 
round the horse — ” So she 

went on talking to herself as 
she watched the horse walking 
leisurely along the road, and the 
Knight tumbling off, first on one 
side and then on the other. After 
[ 151 ] 



the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, 


and then she waved her handkerchief to him, 


and waited till he was out of sight. 



‘I hope it encouraged him,” she said as she . i 


turned to run down the hill; “and now for the Wj.. 
last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it y j\ iH 
sounds!” A very few steps brought her to the , \\ 

The Eighth Square at 



edge of the brook, 
last!” she cried as she bounded across, 

* * * * * * 

and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as 
soft as moss, with little flower-beds dotted 
about it here and there. “Oh, how glad I am 
to get here ! And what is this on my head ?” she 
exclaimed in a tone of dismay, as she put her 
hands up to something very heavy that fitted 
tight all round her head. 

“But how can it have got there without my 
knowing it?” she said to herself as she lifted it 
off and set it on her lap to make out what it 
could possibly be. 

It was a golden crown. 

[ 152 ] 







3t toa£ a golfcett croton. 


See pane 152 









’ELL, this is grand!” said Alice. 
“I never expected I should be a 
Queen so soon — and I’ll tell 
you what it is, your Majesty,” she went on, in a 
severe tone (she was always rather fond of 
scolding herself), “it’ll never do for you to be 
lolling about on the grass like that! Queens 
have to be dignified, you know!” 

So she got up and walked about — rather 
stiffly just at first, as she was afraid that the 
crown might come off; but she comforted her- 
self with the thought that there was nobody to 
see her, “and if I really am a Queen,” she said 
as she sat down again, “I shall be able to man- 
age it quite well in time.” 

Everything was happening so oddly that she 
didn’t feel a bit surprised at finding the Red 
Queen and the White Queen sitting close to 
her, one on each side. She would have liked 
[ 153 ] 









THR9U0H THE 



- ,\y; very much to ask them how they came there, 
but she feared it would not be quite civil. 

K However, there would be no harm, she thought, 

\jh%l i n asking if the game was over. “Please, would 

you tell me — ” she began, looking timidly at HCfc 
the Red Queen. 

“Speak when you’re spoken to!” the Queen 
sharply interrupted her. 

“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said J yf^' 
Alice, who was always ready for a little argu- 
ment, “and if you only spoke when you were 
spoken to, and the other person always waited 
for you to begin, you see nobody would ever 

say anything, so that ” 

‘Ridiculous!” cried the Queen. “Why, don’t 
you see, child — ” here she broke off with a 
frown, and after thinking for a minute, sud- 
denly changed the subject of the conversation. 
“What do you mean by ‘If you really are a 
Queen’? What right have you to call yourself 
so? You can’t be a Queen, you know, till 
you’ve passed the proper examination. And 
the sooner we begin it, the better.” 

[ 1 . 54 ] 

m. 









I®KIHG GLASS 


“I only said ‘if’!” poor Alice pleaded in a 
piteous tone. 

The two Queens looked at each other, and 
the Red Queen remarked, with a little shudder, 
“She says she only said ‘if’ ” 

“But she said a great deal more than 
that!” the White Queen moaned, wringing 
her hands. “Oh, ever so much more than 
that!” 

“So you did, you know,” the Red Queen said 
to Alice. “Always speak the truth — think be- 
fore you speak — and write it down after- 
wards.” 

“I’m sure I didn’t mean — ” Alice was be- 
ginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her 
impatiently. 

“That’s just what I complain of! You 
should have meant! What do you suppose is 
the use of a child without any meaning? Even 
a joke should have some meaning — and a 
child’s more important than a joke, I hope. 
You couldn’t deny that, even if you tried with 
both hands.” 




THROUGH THE 


“I don’t deny things with my hands” Alice 
objected. 

“Nobody said you did,” said the Red Queen. 
“I said you couldn’t if you tried.” 

“She’s in that state of mind,” said the White 
Queen, “that she wants to deny something — 
only she doesn’t know what to deny!” 

“A nasty, vicious temper,” the Red Queen 
remarked; and then there was an uncomfort- 
able silence for a minute or two. 

The Red Queen broke the silence by saying 
to the White Queen, “I invite you to Alice’s 
dinner-party this afternoon.” 

The White Queen smiled feebly and said, 
“And I invite you ” 

“I didn’t know I was to have a party at 
all,” said Alice; “but if there is to be one, I 
think I ought to invite the guests.” 

“We gave you the opportunity of doing it,” 
the Red Queen remarked; “but I daresay 
you’ve not had many lessons in manners 
yet?” 

“Manners are not taught in lessons,” said 
[ 156 ] 



j Alice. “Lessons teach you to do sums and 
things of that sort.” 

“Can you do Addition?” the White Queen 
asked. “What’s one and one and one and one 
and one and one and one and one and one and 

° n f’ 

“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.” 
“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen in- 
terrupted. “Can you do Subtraction? Take 
nine from eight.” 

“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice 

replied very readily; “but ” 

“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White 
Queen. “Can you do Division? Divide a loaf 
by a knife — what’s the answer to that V* 

“I suppose — ” Alice was beginning, but the 
Red Queen answered for her. “Bread-and- 
butter, of course. Try another Subtraction 
sum. Take a bone from a dog ; what remains ?” 

Alice considered. “The bone wouldn’t re- 
main, of course, if I took it, and the dog 
wouldn’t remain; it would come to bite me — 
and I’m sure 1 shouldn’t remain!” 

[ 157 ] 








THROUGH THE 


“Then you think nothing would remain ?” 
said the Red Queen. 

“I think that’s the answer.” 

“Wrong, as usual,” said the Red Queen; 
“the dog’s temper would remain.” 

“But I don’t see how ” 

“Why, look here!” the Red Queen cried. 
“The dog would lose its temper, wouldn’t it?” 

“Perhaps it would,” Alice replied cautiously. 

“Then if the dog went away, its temper 
would remain!” the Queen exclaimed tri- 
umphantly. 

Alice said as gravely as she could, “They 
might go different ways.” But she couldn’t 
help thinking to herself, “What dreadful non- 
sense we are talking!” 

“She can’t do sums a bit!” the Queens said 
together with great emphasis. 

“Can you do sums?” Alice said, turning sud- 
denly on the White Queen, for she didn’t like 
being found fault with so much. 

The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. “I 
can do Addition,” she said, “if you give me 





[ 158 ] 



time,” but I can’t do Subtraction under any 
circumstances !” 

“Of course you know your ABC?” said the 
Red Queen. 

“To be sure I do,” said Alice. 

“So do I,” the White Queen whispered; 
“we’ll often say it over together, dear. And 
I’ll tell you a secret — I can read words of one 
letter! Isn’t that grand? However, don’t be 
discouraged. You’ll come to it in time.” 

Here the Red Queen began again. “Can 
you answer useful questions?” she said. “How 
is bread made?” 




*Sl 


THRPUGH THE 



"You 


“I know that!” Alice cried eagerly, 
take some flour ” 

“Where do you pick the flower?” the White 
Queen asked. “In a garden or in the hedges?” 

“Well, it isn’t picked at all,” Alice ex- 
plained; it’s ground ” 

“How many acres of ground?” said the 
White Queen. You mustn’t leave out so many 
things.” 

“Fan her head!” the Red Queen anxiously 
interrupted. “She’ll be feverish after so 
much thinking.” So they set to work and 
fanned her with bunches of leaves till she 
had to beg them to leave off, it blew her hair 
about so. 

“She’s all right again now,” said the Red 
Queen. “Do you know Languages? What’s 
the French for fiddle-de-dee?” 

“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English,” Alice replied 
gravely. 

“Whoever said it was?” said the Red Queen. 

Alice thought she saw a way out of the diffi- 
culty this time. “If you’ll tell me what lan- 


19PKIWG GLASS 

guage ‘fiddle-de-dee’ is, I’ll tell you the French 
for it!” she exclaimed triumphantly. 

But the Red Queen drew herself up rather 
stiffly and said, “Queens never make bargains.” 

“I wish Queens never asked questions,” Alice 
thought to herself. 

“Don’t let us quarrel,” the White Queen 
said in an anxious tone. “What is the cause 
of lightning?” 

“The cause of lightning,” Alice said very 
decidedly, for she felt quite certain about this, 
“is the thunder — no, no!” she hastily corrected 
herself. “I meant the other way.” 

“It’s too late to correct it,” said the Red 
Queen; “when you’ve once said a thing, that 
fixes it, and you must take the consequences.” 

“Which reminds me — ” the White Queen 
said, looking down and nervously clasping and 
unclasping her hands, “we had such a thunder- 
storm last Tuesday — I mean one of the last 
set of Tuesdays, you know.” 

Alice was puzzled. “In our country,” she 
remarked, “there’s only one day at a time.” 







THROUGH THE 



,yy The Red Queen said, ‘‘That’s a poor, thin 
^p0^way of doing things. Now here we mostly 
R have days and nights two or three at a time, 
and sometimes in the winter we take as 
? many as five nights together — for warmth, 
you know.” 

“Are five nights warmer than one night, 
then?” Alice ventured to ask. 

\) “Five times as warm, of course.” 

“But they should be five times as cold, by 
the same rule ” 

“Just so!” cried the Red Queen. “Five 
times as warm, and five times as cold — just 
as I’m five times as rich as you are, and five 
times as clever!” 

Alice sighed and gave it up. “It’s exactly 
like a riddle with no answer!” she thought. 

“Humpty Dumpty saw it, too,” the White 
Queen went on in a low voice, more as if she 
were talking to herself. “He came to the door 

with a corkscrew in his hand ” 

“What did he want?” said the Red Queen. 
“He said he would come in,” the White 
[ 162 ] 







IWKING GLASS 


Queen went on, “because he was looking for 
a hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there 
wasn’t such a thing in the house that morn- 
ing.” 

“Is there generally?” Alice asked in an 
astonished tone. 

“Well, only on Thursdays,” said the Queen. 

“I know what he came for,” said Alice; “he 
wanted to punish the fish, because ” 

Here the White Queen began again. “It 
was such a thunderstorm, you can’t think I” 
(“She never could, you know,” said the Red 
Queen.) “And part of the roof came off, and 
ever so much thunder got in — and it went roll- 
ing round the room in great lumps — and 
knocking over the tables and things — till I was 
so frightened I couldn’t remember my own 
name 1” 

Alice thought to herself, “I never should try 
to remember my name in the middle of an 
accident! Where would be the use of it?” but 
she did not say this aloud, for fear of hurting 
the poor Queen’s feelings. 

[ 163 ] 




# 


THROUGH THE 


Your Majesty must excuse her,” the Red 
Queen said to Alice, taking one of the White 
Queen’s hands in her own, and gently stroking 
it; “she means well, but she can’t help saying 
foolish things as a general rule.” 

The White Queen looked timidly at Alice, 
who felt she ought to say something kind, but 
really couldn’t think of anything at the mo- 
ment. 

“She never was really well brought up,” the 
Red Queen went on; “but it’s amazing how 
good-tempered she is! Pat her on the head 
and see how pleased she’ll be!” But this was 
more than Alice had courage to do. 

“A little kindness — and putting her hair in 
papers — would do wonders with her ” 

The White Queen gave a deep sigh and laid 
her head on Alice’s shoulder. “I am so 
sleepy!” she moaned. 

“She’s tired, poor thing!” said the Red 
Queen. “Smooth her hair, lend her your night- 
cap and sing her a soothing lullaby.” 

“I haven’t got a nightcap with me,” said 
[ 164 ] 



“and I don't know any soothing lullabies.” 

“I must do it myself, then,” said the Red 
Queen, and she began : 

“ Hush-a-by , lady , in Alice's lap! 

Till the feast's ready , we've time for a nap. 

When the feast's over, we'll go to the hall — 


Red Queen , and White Queen , and Alice, and a 111 ” 



“And now you know the words,” she added, 
as she put her head down on Alice’s other 
shoulder, “just sing it through to me, I’m 
getting sleepy, too.” In another moment both 
Queens were fast asleep and snoring loud. 

“What am I to do?” exclaimed Alice, look- 
ing about in great perplexity, as first one round 
head and then the other rolled down from her 
shoulder and lay like a heavy lump in her lap. 
“I don’t think it ever happened before that any 
one had to take care of two Queens asleep at 
once ! No, not in all the History of England — 
it couldn’t, you know, because there never was 
more than one Queen at a time. Do wake up, 
you heavy things !” she went on in an impatient 


[ 165 ] 



tone; but there was no answer but a gentle 
snoring. 

The snoring got more distinct every minute, 

w 


and sounded more like a tune ; at last she could 4 T S/;; 


even make out words, and she listened so _ 

VyilVN 

eagerly that when the two great heads sud- 


denly vanished from her lap she hardly missed 
them. 

She was standing before an arched doorway, 
over which were the words “QUEEN 
ALICE” in large letters, and on each side of 
the arch there was a bell-handle; one was 
marked “Visitors’ Bell” and the other “Ser- 
vants’ Bell.” 

“I’ll wait till the song’s over,” thought Alice, 
“and then I’ll ring the — the — which bell must 
I ring?” she went on, very much puzzled by the 
names. “I’m not a visitor and I’m not a ser- 
vant. There ought to be one marked ‘Queen,’ 
you know ” 


J ust then the door opened a little way and 
a creature with a long beak put its head out 
for a moment and said, “No admittance till the (V Wj, 



[ 166 ] 






“Wfmt it noto?” gatb 
tf)e Jfrog. 


racje 167 







week after next!” and shut the door again with 
a bang. 

Alice knocked and rang in vain for a long 
time; but at last a very old Frog, who was 
sitting under a tree, got up and hobbled slowly 
toward her; he was dressed in bright yellow 
and had enormous boots on. 

“What is it now?” the Frog said in a deep, 
hoarse whisper. 

Alice turned round, ready to find fault with 
anybody. “Where’s the servant whose busi- 
ness it is to answer the door?” she began 
angrily. 

“Which door?” said the Frog. 

Alice almost stamped with irritation at the 
slow drawl in which he spoke. “This door, of 
course!” 

The Frog looked at the door with his large 
dull eyes for a minute; then he went nearer 
and rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were 
trying whether the paint would come off ; then 
he looked at Alice. 

“To answer the door?” he said. “What’s 

t 167 ] 



it been asking of?” He was so hoarse that 
Alice could scarcely hear him. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. 

“I speaks English, doesn’t I?” the Frog 
went on. “Or are you deaf? What did it ask 
you?” 

“Nothing!” Alice said impatiently. “I’ve 
been knocking at it!” 

“Shouldn’t do that — shouldn’t do that — ” 
the Frog muttered. “Wexes it, you know.” 
Then he went up and gave the door a kick with 
one of his great feet. “You let it alone,” he 
panted out, as he hobbled back to his tree, “and 
it’ll let you alone, you know.” 

At this moment the door was flung open and 
a shrill voice was heard singing: 

“To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said 
*Vve a sceptre in hand , I’ve a crown on my head . 
Let the Looking-Glass creatures , whatever they he 
Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, 
and me !* ” 

And hundreds of voices joined in the 


[ 168 ] 




IWKING GLASS 


“ Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can , 

And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran: 

Put cats in the coffee , and mice m the tea — 

And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times three!” 

Then followed a confused noise of cheering, 
and Alice thought to herself, “Thirty times 
three makes ninety. I wonder if any one’s 
counting?” In a minute there was silence, 
again and the same shrill voice sang another 
verse : 

“ ‘0 Looking-Glass creatures' quoth Alice , * draw 
near! 

’ Tis an honor to see me, a favor to hear: 

’Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea 
Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and 
me ! 9 ” 

Then came the chorus again: 

“ Then fill up the glasses with treacle and ink. 

Or anything else that is pleasant to drink: 

Mix sand with the cider, and wool with the wme — 
And welcome Queen Alice with ninety-times-nme!” 


“Ninety times nine!” Alice repeated in de- 





spair. “Oh, that’ll never be done! I’d better 
go in at once — ” and in she went, and there was 
a dead silence the moment she appeared. 

Alice glanced nervously along the table as 
she walked up the large hall, and noticed that 
there were about fifty guests of all kinds : some 
were animals, some birds, and there were even 
a few flowers among them. “I’m glad they’ve 
come without waiting to be asked,” she 
thought; “I should never have known who 
were the right people to invite!” 

There were three chairs at the head of the 
table. The Red and White Queens had 
already taken two of them, but the middle one 
was empty. Alice sat down in it, rather un- 
comfortable at the silence, and longing for 
some one to speak. 

At last the Red Queen began. “You’ve 
missed the soup and fish,” she said. “Put on 
the joint!” And the waiters set a leg of 
mutton before Alice, who looked at it rather 
anxiously, as she had never had to carve a joint 
before. 





[ 170 ] 


INKING GLASS 

“You look a little shy; let me introduce you 
to that leg of mutton,” said the Red Queen. 
“Alice — Mutton. Mutton — Alice.” The leg 
of mutton got up in the dish and made a little 
bow to Alice, and Alice returned the bow, not 
knowing whether to be frightened or amused. 

“May I give you a slice?” she said, taking 
up the knife and fork and looking from one 
Queen to the other. 

“Certainly not,” the Red Queen said, very 
decidedly; “it isn’t etiquette to cut any one 
you’ve been introduced to. Remove the joint !” 
And the waiters carried it off and brought a 
large plum-pudding in its place. 

“I won’t be introduced to the pudding, 





[ 171 ] 



THROUGH THE 




> please,” Alice said rather hastily, “or we shall 
get no dinner at all. May I give you some?” 

But the Red Queen looked sulky and 
growled, “Pudding — Alice. Alice — Pudding. 
Remove the pudding!” and the waiters took it 
away so quickly that Alice couldn’t return its 

how . Xr!\ 

v However, she didn’t see why the Red Queen 
should be the only one to give orders; so, as 
an experiment, she called out, “Waiter! Bring 
back the pudding!” and there it was again in 
a moment, like a conjuring-trick. It was so 
large that she couldn’t help feeling a little shy 
with it, as she had been with the mutton ; how- 
ever, she conquered her shyness by a great 
effort and cut a slice and handed it to the Red 
Queen. 

“What impertinence!” said the Pudding. “I 
wonder how you’d like it if I were to cut a 
slice out of you , you creature!” 

It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and 
Alice hadn’t a word to say in reply; she could 






“Make a remark,” said the Red Queen; “it’s 
ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the 
pudding!” 

“Do you know, IVe had such a quantity of 
poetry repeated to me to-day,” Alice began, 
a little frightened at finding that the moment 
she opened her lips there was dead silence and 
all eyes were fixed upon her; “and it’s a very 
curious thing, I think — every poem was about 
fishes in some way. Do you know why they’re 
so fond of fishes all about here?” 

She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer 
was a little wide of the mark. “As to fishes,” 
she said very slowly and solemnly, putting her 
mouth close to Alice’s ear, “her White Majesty 
knows a lovely riddle — all in poetry — all about 
fishes. Shall she repeat it?” 

“Her Red Majesty’s very kind to men- 
tion it,” the White Queen murmured into 
Alice’s other ear in a voice like the cooing 
of a pigeon. “It would be such a treat! 
May I?” 

“Please do,” Alice said very politely. 

[ 173 ] 


The White Queen laughed with delight and 
stroked Alice’s cheek. Then she began: 

44 4 First , the fish must be caught * 

That is easy: a baby , I think , could have caught it. 

4 Next , the fish must be bought .’ 

That is easy : a penny, 1 think , would have bought it. 

44 4 Now cook me the fish !’ 

That is easy , and will not take more than a minute . 
‘Let it lie in a dish /’ 

That is easy , because it already is in it. 

44 4 Bring it here! Let me sup! 9 
It is easy to set such a dish on the table. 

‘Take the dish-cover up! y 
Ah, that is so hard that I fear Vm unable! 

“For it holds it like glue — 

Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle: 
Which is easiest to do, 

Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle ?” 

“Take a minute to think about it, and then 
guess,” said the Red Queen. “Meanwhile, we’ll 
drink your health — Queen Alice’s health!” she 
screamed at the top of her voice, and all the 





LIKING GLASS 

guests began drinking it directly, and very^A^ 
queerly they managed it: some of them putC^^2 
their glasses upon their heads like extinguish- ^j\ i\\ , 
ers and drank all that trickled down their faces ; 
others upset the decanters and drank the wine 
as it ran off the edges of the table; and three 
of them (who looked like kangaroos) scrambled , 
into the dish of roast mutton and began eagerly / 
lapping up the gravy, “just like pigs in a 
trough!” thought Alice. 

“You ought to return thanks in a neat 
speech,” the Red Queen said, frowning at Alice 
as she spoke. 

“We must support you, you know,” the 
White Queen whispered, as Alice got up to do 
it, very obediently, but a little frightened. 

“Thank you very much,” she whispered in 
reply, “but I can do quite well without.” 

“That wouldn’t be at all the thing,” the Red 
Queen said very decidedly; so Alice tried to 
submit to it with a good grace. 

(“And they did push so!” she said after- 
wards when she was telling her sister the his- 
[ 175 ] 

m 






(5 



THROUGH THE 


tory of the feast. “You would have thought 
they wanted to squeeze me flat!”) 

In fact, it was rather difficult for her to 
keep in her place while she made her speech; 
the two Queens pushed her so, one on each 
side, that they nearly lifted her up into the 
air. “I rise to return thanks — ” Alice be- 
gan, and she really did rise as she spoke 
several inches; but she got hold of the edge 
of the table and managed to pull herself down 
again. 

“Take care of yourself!” screamed the White 
Queen, seizing Alice’s hair with both her hands. 
“Something’s going to happen!” 

And then (as Alice afterwards described it) 
all sorts of things happened in a moment. The 
candles all grew up to the ceiling, looking 
something like a bed of rushes with fireworks 
at the top. As to the bottles, they each took a 
pair of plates, which they hastily fitted on as 
wings, and so, with forks for legs, went flutter- 
ing about in all directions; “and very like birds 
they look,” Alice thought to herself as well as 
[ 176 ] 



glnb tfjen all siorts* ol 
tlnngg tappeneb. 


rnuc 176 










she could in the dreadful confusion that was 
beginning. 

At this moment she heard a hoarse laugh 
at her side, and turned to see what was the 
matter with the White Queen; but instead of 
the Queen, there was the leg of mutton sitting 
in the chair. “Here I am!” cried a voice from 
the soup-tureen, and Alice turned again just 
in time to see the Queen’s broad, good-natured 
face grinning at her for a moment over the 
edge of the tureen before she disappeared into 
the soup. 

There was not a moment to be lost. Already 
several of the guests were lying down in the 
dishes, and the soup-ladle was walking up the 
table towards Alice’s chair and beckoning to 
her impatiently to get out of its way. 

“I can’t stand this any longer!” she cried, as 
she jumped up and seized the tablecloth with 
both hands. One good pull, and plates, dishes, 
guests and candles came crashing down to- 
gether in a heap on the floor. 

“And as for you ” she went on, turning 





THROUGH THE 



^ AAy fiercely upon the Red Queen, whom she con- 
Cr ^ sidered as the cause of all the mischief — but the 

§ Queen was no longer at her side ; she had sud- 
denly dwindled down to the size of a little doll 
~ and was now on the table, merrily running 
round and round after her own shawl, which 
was trailing behind her. 

At any other time Alice would have felt 
surprised at this, but she was far too much 
excited to be surprised at anything now . “As 
for you " she repeated, catching hold of the 
little creature in the very act of jumping over 
a bottle which had just lighted upon the table, 
“I’ll shake you into a kitten, that I will!” 



I9PKING GLASS 



SHAKING 



| HE took her off the table as she spoke 
and shook her backwards and forwards 


with all her might. 

The Red Queen made no resistance what- 
ever; only her face grew very small and her 
eyes got large and green; and still, as Alice 
went on shaking her, she kept on growing 
shorter — and fatter — and softer — and rounder 
— and 






THROUGH THE 



WAKING 

-and it really was a kitten, after all. 





[ 180 ] 


WHICH DREAMED IT? 


Y 



OUR Red Majesty shouldn’t purr so 
loud,” Alice said, rubbing her eyes 
and addressing the kitten respect- 
fully, yet with some severity. “You woke me 
out of oh ! such a nice dream ! And you’ve been 
along with me, Kitty — all through the Look- 
ing-Glass world. Did you know it, dear?” 

It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens 
(Alice had once made the remark) that what- 
ever you say to them they always purr. “If 
they would only purr for ‘yes’ and mew for 
‘no,’ or any rule of that sort,” she had said, “so 
that one could keep up a conversation! But 
how can you talk with a person if they always 
say the same thing?” 

On this occasion the kitten only purred, and 
it was impossible to guess whether it meant 
yes” or “no.” 



THROUGH THE 



Alice hunted among the chessmen on the 
table till she had found the Red Queen; then w 
she went down on her knees on the hearth-rug 
and put the kitten and the Queen to look at Wjp 
> each other. “Now, Kitty,” she cried, clapping 
her hands triumphantly, “confess that was 
ly what you turned into!” 

(“But it wouldn’t look at it,” she said when 
she was explaining the thing afterwards to 
her sister; “it turned away its head and pre- 
tended not to see it; but it looked a little 
ashamed of itself, so I think it must have been 
the Red Queen.”) 

“Sit up a little more stiffly, dear!” Alice 
cried with a merry laugh. “And curtsey while 
you’re thinking what to — what to purr. It 
saves time, remember!” And she caught it up 
and gave it one little kiss, “just in honor of 
its having been a Red Queen.” 

“Snowdrop, my pet!” she went on, looking 
over her shoulder at the White Kitten, which 
was still patiently undergoing its toilet, “when 
will Dinah have finished with your White 

fgg&XT 11821 


"hs 


Majesty, I wonder? That must be the reason 
you were so untidy in my dream. Dinah! Do 
you know that you’re scrubbing a White 
Queen? Really, it’s most disrespectful of you! 

‘‘And what did Dinah turn to, I wonder?” 
she prattled on, as she settled comfortably 
down with one elbow on the rug and her chin 
in her hand, to watch the kittens. “Tell me, 
Dinah, did you turn to Humpty Dumpty? I 
think you did ; however, you’d better not men- 
tion it to your friends just yet, for I’m not 
sure. 

“By the way, Kitty, if only you’d been 
really with me in my dream, there was one 
thing you would have enjoyed — I had such a 
quantity of poetry said to me, all about fishes! 
To-morrow morning you shall have a real 
treat. All the time you’re eating your break- 
fast I’ll repeat ‘The Walrus and the Carpen- 
ter’ to you, and then you can make believe it’s 
oysters, dear! 

“Now, Kitty, let’s consider who it was that 
dreamed it all. This is a serious question, my 


N vy. dear, and you should not go on licking your 
paw like that — as if Dinah hadn’t washed you 
this morning! You see, Kitty, it must have 
been either me or the lied King. He was part 
of my dream, of course — but then I was part 
L of his dream, too! Was it the Red King, UJ j\ 
1 Kitty? You were his wife, my dear, so you 
|a\ ought to know. Oh, Kitty, do help to 
Mj settle it! I’m sure your paw can wait!” But 
the provoking kitten only began on the other 
paw and pretended it hadn’t heard the question. 

Which do you think it was? 

A boat, beneath a sunny sky 
Lingering onward dreamily 
In an evening of July — 

Children three that nestle near, 

Eager eye and willing ear, 

Pleased a simple tale to hear — 

Long has paled that sunny sky: 

Echoes fade and memories die : 

Autumn frosts have slain July. 

[ 184 ] 

.tfh 



INKING GLASS 

Still she haunts me, phantomwise, 
Alice moving under skies 
Never seen by waking eyes. 

Children yet, the tale to hear, 
Eager eye and willing ear, 
Lovingly shall nestle near. 

In a Wonderland they lie, 
Dreaming as the days go by, 
Dreaming as the summers die: 

Ever drifting down the stream— 
Lingering in the golden gleam — 
Life, what is it but a dream? 


THE END 












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